The Project Gutenberg eBook, Frank Merriwell in Maine, by Burt L. Standish

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

The cover image was repaired by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

Changes to the text are noted at the [end of the book.]

BOOKS FOR YOUNG MEN

MERRIWELL SERIES

Stories of Frank and Dick Merriwell

PRICE FIFTEEN CENTS

Fascinating Stories of Athletics

A half million enthusiastic followers of the Merriwell brothers will attest the unfailing interest and wholesomeness of these adventures of two lads of high ideals, who play fair with themselves, as well as with the rest of the world.

These stories are rich in fun and thrills in all branches of sports and athletics. They are extremely high in moral tone, and cannot fail to be of immense benefit to every boy who reads them.

They have the splendid quality of firing a boy’s ambition to become a good athlete, in order that he may develop into a strong, vigorous right-thinking man.

ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT

In order that there may be no confusion, we desire to say that the books listed below will be issued during the respective months in New York City and vicinity. They may not reach the readers at a distance promptly, on account of delays in transportation.

Frank Merriwell in Maine
OR,
THE LURE OF ’WAY DOWN EAST

BY

BURT L. STANDISH

Author of the famous Merriwell Stories.

STREET & SMITH CORPORATION

PUBLISHERS

79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York

Copyright, 1898
By STREET & SMITH

Frank Merriwell in Maine

(Printed in the United States of America)

All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian.

FRANK MERRIWELL IN MAINE.

CHAPTER I.
A LIVELY TIME.

Chu! chu! chu!

The sound came from the exhaust pipe of the little steamer.

“Chew! chew chew!” grunted Bruce Browning, lazily looking up at the escaping steam. “Do you know what that makes me think of?”

“Vot?” asked Hans Dunnerwust, who did not like the glance that Browning gave him, and who felt mentally sore because he had been laughed at for trying to get sauerkraut for breakfast. “Vat vos id you makes id t’ink uf?”

“Of the time you kicked that hornet’s nest, supposing it to be a football.”

“Py shimminy, uf dot feetpall did gick me und gid stung in more as lefendeen hundret blaces, id didn’t chewed me!”

“No, but you chewed the tobacco to put on the stings, and that old exhaust pipe sounds just like Merry, when he kept saying to you, ‘Chew! chew! chew!’—and you chewed like a goat!”

“Und peen so seasick vrom id! Ach! I vish dot dose hornets hat kilt me deat ven I stinged dhem.”

“Speaking of a goat,” remarked Hodge, “I saw one aboard a while ago. It belongs to the little boy that came on the boat with the lady as we were getting our things down to the landing.”

“Shouldn’t think they’d allow a goat on the steamer,” said Diamond, in disgust. “This isn’t a stock boat.”

“No, but it looks like a lumber van,” declared Browning, glancing about the deck, where some new furniture had been stowed, destined for Capen’s, or perhaps Kineo. “I guess it carries about everything that people are willing to pay for.”

“The man who can deliberately grumble on such a morning and amid such surroundings, ‘is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils,’” declared Merriwell, looking admiringly across the water. “Tell me if any of you ever saw anything finer.”

Frank Merriwell and a party of friends were on the steamer Katahdin, out in the roomy sheet of water known as Moosehead Lake. The Katahdin had left the town of Greenville, near the southern extremity of the lake, some time before. Its ultimate destination was Kineo, the objective point of many tourists, but it was to stop at Capen’s, or Deer Isle, to put ashore some supplies there, together with Frank Merriwell’s party, consisting of Merriwell, Bart Hodge, Bruce Browning, Jack Diamond and Hans Dunnerwust, all friends of his at Yale.

They had left Greenville in a thick fog, which had at length rolled away, giving them a view of surpassing beauty. The water crinkled under the light breeze like a sea of silk. The sky was of so clear a blue that the black smoke from the little funnel trailed across it like a blotch of ink.

All round were the lake’s grassy, timbered shores. In the northwest, the brown precipice of Mount Kineo lifted its hornstone face to a height of eight hundred feet. It was named for an old Indian chief, who lived on its crest for nearly fifty years. The volcanic cone known as Spencer Peaks rose in the east, while beyond them towered the granite top of Katahdin. In the southwest was the rugged head of “Old Squaw,” named for the mother of Chief Kineo, who dwelt on its top, as her son dwelt on the top of the mountain that bears his name.

Diamond glanced back toward Greenville, and sang, rather than said, “Farewell, Greenville!”

This started Frank Merriwell, who got out his guitar, put it in tune, then leaned back on the camp stool with which he had provided himself and sang:

“Farewell, lady!

Farewell, lady!

Farewell, lady!

We’re going to leave you now.”

Jack Diamond, who sang a fine tenor, joined him in the chorus, which in spite of its jolly words, floated over the water in a way that was almost melancholy:

“Merrily we roll along,

Roll along,

Roll along,

Merrily we roll along,

O’er the deep, blue sea!”

“That sentiment would be all right, now, if we were on one of those new-fangled roller boats,” observed Browning, “but it hardly fits the present occasion. I’d suggest that you change that to ‘skim along,’ or ‘steam along’; we’re certainly not rolling. There isn’t enough sea going on this old lake to make a birch canoe roll!”

Diamond did not seem to hear this. There was a faraway look in his eyes that made Merriwell wonder if Jack were not thinking of a girl to whom he had said farewell at Bar Harbor earlier in the summer.

Merriwell started another old song, whose music and words were sad enough to bring tears, and Diamond’s rich tenor took it up with him. It was a song of the friends of long ago, and the last stanza ran:

“Some have gone to lands far distant,

And with strangers make their home;

Some upon the world of waters

All their lives are forced to roam;

Some have gone from earth forever,

Longer here they might not stay.

They have found a fairer region,

Far away, far away!

They have found a fairer region,

Far away, far away!”

“I vish you voult quit dot!” implored Hans, digging some very fat knuckles into some very red eyes. “Dot make me feel like my mutter-in-law lost me. I feel like somet’ing gid behint me und tickle dill I cry.”

He was interrupted by a warning scream, in a woman’s voice.

“Here, Billy! Look out! Look out!” was shouted.

At the same instant there was a blow, a sound of smashing glass, and with a squawk of astonishment and fright, Hans Dunnerwust shot forward and into the air, as if hit by a pile driver. Something had “tickled” him from behind, in a most unexpected way. It was the goat, of which Hodge had spoken.

“Wow! Mutter! Fire! I vos shot! Hellup! Ye-e-e-ow!”

Hans clawed the air with feet and hands in a frenzy of alarm. Then he came down on the goat’s back and began to squawk again:

“Safe me! I vos kilt alretty! Somet’ings vos riting me avay! Hellup! Murter!” as the goat, frightened by Hans’ fall upon his back, made a forward dash.

Hans had been seated on a stool, which was a part of the new furniture stowed on the deck. A mirror leaned against this stool, the mirror being also a part of the furniture.

The goat was supposed to be kept somewhere below, but it had refused to remain there, and in its peregrinations over the vessel had finally wandered to the upper deck.

The boy had followed it, with the intention of taking it below again, but it had scampered by him.

Then it had suddenly become aware of the fact that there was another goat on the steamer. This new goat was in the mirror. The new goat looked pugnacious and put down its head in a belligerent way when the other goat put down its head. This was too much for any right-minded goat to endure, and so Billy made a rush with lowered head and smashed the mirror goat into a thousand pieces.

Fortunately it struck below Hans and merely hoisted him forward and upward. Its impact was like that of a battering-ram, and if it had butted him fairly in the back it would have inflicted serious injuries. Still though not at all hurt, Hans thought himself as good as dead, and bellowed right lustily.

The other members of the party sprang to their feet, quite as startled, while the boy raced across the deck to stop the goat’s mad career, and the boy’s mother screamed in alarm.

Hans’ fat legs flailed the air, as the goat made its rush, then he tumbled off, with a resounding thump.

“Hellup!” he roared. “Something vos kilt py me! I vos smashed indo more as a hundret and sefendeen bieces!”

Seeing he was not injured, his friends began to laugh.

Hans rolled over, gave them a hurt and angry look, then glanced in the direction taken by the goat.

It had faced about and now stood with lowered head awaiting the turn of events. Plainly it was bewildered. The disappearance of the other goat was to it a puzzling mystery.

“Ba-a-aa!”

Its warning note sounded, as Hans lifted himself on his hands and knees. He was facing the goat, in what the goat thought a threatening attitude. Billy’s fighting instincts were aroused and he was ready for any and all comers, whether they were goats or men.

The comical pugilistic attitude of Hans and the goat was too much for Frank Merriwell’s risibilities. He shouted with laughter. And even Bart Hodge and Jack Diamond, who seldom laughed at anything, laughed at this. Bruce Browning dropped limply back on his stool, haw-hawing.

“Yaw!” snorted Hans. “Dot vos very funny, ain’d it? Maype you seen a shoke somevere, don’d id? You peen retty to laugh a-dyin’, ven I vos kilt. Oh! you gone to plazes! I vos——”

The boy dashed by him toward the goat and Hans lifted himself still higher on his hands and knees.

This was too much for the goat.

“Ba-a-aa!”

Whish! Whack!

He made for Hans with lowered head, passing the boy at a bound, and struck a blow that tumbled Hans down on the deck. But the fire and force were taken out of the goat’s rush, for the boy caught him by his short tail as he passed, and gave the tail such a yank that the goat was skewed round and struck Hans’ shoulder only a glancing blow.

Hans went down in a bellowing heap, and the goat squared for another rush.

“Safe me!” Hans yelled. “You peen goin’ let me kill somet’ing, eh? Wow! Id’s coming do kill me again! Hellup! Fire! Murter! Bolice!”

Diamond picked up a rope’s end and gave the goat a whack across the back. It was like whacking a piece of wood. The goat did not budge.

The boy caught it by the tail. Hans lifted himself, and the goat, dragging the boy, made for him again.

This time Hans fell down without being touched.

Diamond leaped after the boy and sought to take the goat by the neck. It flung him off.

“Ba-a-aa!”

Whack!

That was the goat’s reply to Diamond for his attempted interference. The blow fell on Diamond’s legs, knocking them from under him, and the young Virginian promptly measured his length on the deck.

The goat wheeled again and struck at Bruce Browning, who was crawling off his easy stool. It missed Bruce.

The boy had lost his grip on the goat’s tail, after having been yanked about in a neck-breaking manner.

“Ye-e-ow!” screeched Hans, rolling over and over in a wild effort to gain a place of safety. “I pelief dot vos a sdeam inchine run py electricidy! Led id gid avay vrom me qvick! Somepoty blease holt me dill I gids avay vrom id! Hellup! Murter!”

Browning dashed to Diamond’s assistance, and was joined by Merriwell and Bart Hodge. But they could not hold the goat. It squirmed out of their hands like an eel and scampered to the other side of the deck.

Whish! Spat!

A stream of water from the steamer’s hose struck the goat amidships, at this juncture, and fairly bowled it over.

Some of the crew had decided to take a hand, and were now training the hose on the pugnacious creature.

The goat shook itself and lowered its head as if for the purpose of attacking this new foe. But it quickly changed its mind, and raced from the deck, followed by the stream, sending back a defiant “Ba-a-aa!” however, as it disappeared.

Hans climbed slowly and hesitatingly to his feet, ready to drop down at the first warning. He steadied himself on his fat, shaky legs, and looked round the deck with owlish gravity, as if he doubted the goat’s disappearance.

“Are you hurt?” Merriwell sympathetically asked, advancing.

“Vos you hurt!” Hans indignantly squealed. “Dunder und blitzens! I vos kilt more as sefendeen hundret dimes, alretty yet! I vos plack und plue vrom your head to my heels.”

“Diamond caught it, too,” said Browning.

There was a faint smile on his face, which Hans did not let pass unnoticed.

“Dot vos de drouble mit me! You didn’t nopoby gatch id! Uf you hat gatched it, id vouldn’t haf putted me down so like a bile-drifer! Yaw! You vos a smart fellers, ain’d id! You vos a plooming idiot, und dot’s vot’s der madder mit me!”

“Better hunt up the goat and shake hands with it, and tell it you didn’t mean it!” suggested Browning, who couldn’t keep back a smile and some pleasantry when he saw that Hans was really not hurt in the least.

Hans turned away in disgust and sought his stool.

“You don’t know a shoke ven id seen you!” he declared. “Uf you vos murtered pefore my eyes, you voult laugh!”

He turned the stool over and jammed it down on the deck, causing a shower of glass to fall.

Although thoroughly disgusted and angry, Diamond decided not to make himself ridiculous by showing it.

An officer came forward to look at the broken mirror, and a man appeared with a broom to sweep up the glass and throw it overboard.

Merriwell picked up his guitar and began to strum the strings, and soon he and Diamond were again singing, and the laughable, almost disagreeable incident seemed on the way to speedy oblivion.

Hans maintained a glum silence, however, till the steamer reached Capen’s, now and then rubbing some portion of his anatomy as if to make certain it was all there and not violently swelling as a portent of his speedy death.

The lady apologized for the unruliness of the goat, and paid for the damage done to the mirror.

“Here we are,” announced Merriwell, as the steamer rounded to at the boat landing at Capen’s.

The boy came on deck with the goat, leading it by a rope, and Hans dodged behind the Virginian.

“Uf I see dot feller meppe he gid his mat oop again,” he muttered, “und uf I don’t see me he von’t knew me!”

But the goat seemed now to be very peaceably disposed. It obediently followed the boy and was led ashore by him.

The furniture was landed at Capen’s, too; and soon the steamer, with a much lighter burden, was standing off toward the northwest in the direction of Kineo.

One of the first things Merriwell did when they were comfortably located in the hotel was to inquire for a guide. He had written to Capen, explaining his needs, and he found Capen ready to supply them.

Merriwell’s party was in the Moosehead Lake region, in the tourist season for sport.

Not sport with the gun, however, in the ordinary sense, for it was the close season on all large game; but for a few days of the enjoyment of camping out.

Merriwell intended to do his hunting with a camera, he said; and had brought with him a fine, yet small and handy camera, well adapted to his purposes. He did not desire to shoot any large game, but he hoped to be able to snap the camera on something of the kind that would be worth while.

Above all, however, they intended to lounge and loaf and enjoy themselves without unnecessary exertion, for the time was right in the middle of August; and in August it often gets very hot, even along Moosehead Lake, as they well knew.

Capen, when spoken to by Frank about the promised guide, announced that he was ready to furnish the best and most reliable guide in all that country, and sent for the guide at once.

He came, an Old Town Indian, bearing the name of John Caribou.

Merriwell looked him over and nodded his approval.

“I think he’ll do!” he said.

“Do!” said Capen. “You couldn’t find a better, if you should hunt a year!”

The other members of the party were in the room, closely studying the face and figure of the guide. They saw an Indian of more than ordinary height and strength, dressed in very ordinary clothing, with long hair falling to his shoulders. This hair was as black as a raven’s wing, but not blacker than the keen eyes set between the heavy brows and high cheek bones. The face was grave and unreadable, and the man’s attitude one of impassive silence. An observer might have fancied that the conference did not concern the Indian at all.

Capen offered to furnish the guide, two tents, two birch-bark canoes and supplies for the contemplated trip, for a certain sum, which was agreed to without haggling.

Then Frank Merriwell turned to the guide, who had, so far, not said a word.

“When can you go?” Merry asked.

“’Morrow,” said Caribou, with commendable promptness. “If want can go to-day.”

“He’ll be ready long before you are, gentlemen,” declared Capen. “I don’t doubt he could go in fifteen minutes should it be necessary. But I shall have to get an extra canoe which I can’t do before morning, as he knows, and with your permission I’ll send him for it.”

“Why didn’t he get us a white man?” grumbled Diamond when both Capen and John Caribou were gone. “Of course, it’s to his interest to brag about the fellow. I’m not stuck on Indians myself. It’s my opinion that you can’t rely on them; that they’re all right only so long as everything goes all right, and they’re treacherous, ungenerous and ungrateful. If our Indian guide doesn’t make us sorry we ever met him then I miss my guess.”

“I’m sure he’s all right!” asserted Merriwell. “I studied his face closely while we were talking. It’s Indian, to be sure, but there is no treachery in it. I’ll put my opinion against yours that we’ll find John Caribou as faithful, honest and true as any white man.”

Statements are not always convincing, however, and the Virginian remained unchanged in his belief.

Who was right and who was wrong? We shall see.

CHAPTER II.
DIAMOND’S ADVENTURE.

“Caribou is starting out well, at all events,” said Merry, speaking to Bruce Browning.

The guide had built a rousing fire, which had now died down to a bed of coals, on which he was getting supper, handling coffeepot and frying pan with the skill that comes from long experience in the woods.

The light of the fire flung back the encroaching shadows of night and sent a red glare through the woods and across the surrounding stretches of water.

Frank Merriwell’s party was camped on one of the many small islands in Lily Bay, in the southeastern angle of Moosehead Lake, not a great distance from the mainland, which at this point was well wooded.

The tall pines were visible from the island in the daytime, but nothing could be seen now at any great distance beyond the ring of light made by the camp fire.

The wind was stirring in the tops of the low trees of the island and tossing the waves lappingly against the sterns of two birch-bark canoes that were drawn up on the shore and secured to stakes set in the earth.

John Caribou rose from his task, and stood erect in the light of the fire, a long bread knife in his hand. He presented a striking appearance as he stood thus, with the red fire light coloring face and clothing.

“That fellow is all right, even if Diamond thinks he isn’t!” declared Merriwell. “I’m willing to bank on him.”

The hoot of an owl came from across the water. Caribou started at the sound, stood for a moment in a listening attitude, then, observing that he was noticed, he resumed his work of getting supper.

They had reached the island, coming from Capen’s, late in the afternoon. But their two small A tents were already in position, and everything was in readiness for an enjoyable camping time.

Though there were so many tourists at Greenville and Capen’s that Frank and his friends had begun to doubt that they would see any game at all round Moosehead Lake, their present location seemed wild and remote enough to satisfy their most exacting demands.

They had already discovered there were trout in the lake, and big, hungry, gamey ones at that. The odor of some of these, which Caribou was cooking, came appetizingly on the breeze. It was the close season for trout as well as game, but fish wardens seldom trouble campers who catch no more than enough fish for their own use, and Caribou had declared that he would assume all responsibility.

Frank Merriwell got out his guitar again after supper. And what an enjoyable supper it was! Only those who have experienced the delights of camp life in the odorous woods, with the rippling music of water and the song of the wind in the trees, can have any true conception of its pleasures. Cares indeed “fold their tents like the Arabs and as silently steal away.”

The shadows advanced and retreated as the fire flared up or sank down, some wild beast screamed afar off on the mainland, a sleepy bird hidden somewhere in the bushes twittered a sleepy response to the music of the guitar and the words of the song, and the note of the owl heard earlier in the evening came again.

Merriwell played the guitar and he and Diamond sang until a late hour, when all retired, to speedily fall asleep. The night was well advanced, and there was a light mist on the face of the water, when Diamond roused up, pushed aside the canvas flap of the tent and looked out. The moonlight fell faintly.

The young Virginian had a feeling that something or somebody had disturbed him. Unable to shake this off, he crept softly into his clothing and slipped out of the tent. The fire had died down, but some coals still glowed in the bed of ashes.

He was about to put wood on these, when he heard a rustling.

“What was that?” he asked himself, turning quickly.

Then he saw the form of a man stealing away from the vicinity of the camp.

“That’s the guide,” he whispered, his suspicions instantly aroused. “Now, I wonder what he’s up to?”

He saw the form melting into the darkness, and wondered if he should call Merriwell or some member of the party.

“No, I’ll look into this thing myself!” he decided.

He had no weapon save a pocket knife; but, nevertheless, he set out after the gliding form he supposed to be the guide.

“I must be careful, or I’ll miss him!” he thought, stopping when clear of the camp. “He walks like a shadow.”

He heard the bushes rustle, and, guided by the sound, hurried on, and soon came again in sight of the stealthy figure. He was still sure it was the guide, and was much exercised as to why the man should be astir at that hour of the night.

Straight across the island went the man, with Diamond hanging closely behind.

“He’s gone!” Diamond whispered, in astonishment, stopping again in the hope that other sounds would guide him.

When he had listened for full two minutes, he heard a splash like the dipping of a paddle blade in the water. It was at one side and some distance away.

He dashed through the bushes and stood on the shore of the lake. A canoe was vanishing in the mist.

“That rascally guide is up to some dirt, sure as I live!” he muttered. “I’ll just go back and rouse up the boys, and when he returns we’ll demand an explanation!”

With this resolution, he started back across the island, puzzling vainly over the guide’s queer actions.

Scarcely had he left the shore when he tripped and fell.

“Chug!”

“Spt! Spt! Gr-r-r!”

The first sound was made by Diamond dropping into a hole between some roots or rocks; the other sounds revealed to him the unpleasant fact that he had tumbled into some den of wild animals.

“Goodness! what can they be?” he cried, scrambling out with undignified haste and retreating toward the high rock that he saw towering just at hand. “Wildcats, maybe! They sound like cats!”

There was a scratching and rattling of claws and an ugly-looking brute poked up a round, catlike head and stared at him with eyes that shone very unpleasantly in the moonlight.

Jack Diamond was not a person to scare easily, even though he was unarmed.

Another head appeared close by the first; then the two big cats crawled out on the ground, and sat erect like dogs, looking hard at him.

They were right in the path he desired to take.

“If I had a gun, I’d have the hide of one of you for your impudence!” he thought, returning their look with interest. “It would make a pretty rug, too.”

As he studied them, the knowledge came to him that they were the ferocious lynx called by the French Canadians loo-sevee—loup-cervier. There was a silky fringe on the tips of their ears, and they had heavy coats, sharp claws and cruel teeth.

Having decided that they were loup-cerviers, and believing that he had tumbled into their den, where were possibly some young, the Virginian, courageous as he was, lost much of his desire to fight.

He began to retreat, thinking to make a circuit and pass them.

“We’ll have fun with you in the morning!” he muttered. “There’s never any close season against loup-cerviers.”

But the lynxes seemed quite willing that the fun should begin then and there. As he retreated, they advanced, convinced, probably, that he was cowardly.

Thereupon, Diamond backed up against the rock, and picking up a stick, hurled it at them.

“Gr-r-r!”

Instead of frightening them, they came on faster than ever, uttering a sound that was nearer a growl than anything to which Diamond could liken it.

The young Virginian did not like the idea of turning about in an ignominious flight, so he climbed to the first shelf of the rocky ledge, feeling with his hands as he did so in hope of finding something that would be a valuable weapon.

“If I ever leave camp again without a rifle, I hope somebody will kick me!” he growled.

The loup-cerviers came up to the foot of the ledge and sat down like dogs, just as they had done before; and there remained, eying him hungrily, and evidently determined that he should not pass.

“This is decidedly unpleasant,” was his mental comment. “I guess I might as well call for help. If I’m kept here too long, that guide will have a chance to get back and declare that he hasn’t been away from camp a minute.”

Then he lifted his voice.

“Yee-ho-o!” he called, funneling his hands and sending the penetrating sound across the island like the blast of a bugle. “Yee-ho-o! Come over here, you fellows, and bring your guns with you!”

That ringing call roused out the boys at the camp on the other side of the little island.

“What’s the matter?” demanded Browning.

Hans Dunnerwust drew back, shivering, and covered his head with the blanket.

“Oxcoose me!” he begged. “Shust tell dem dot you sawed me. I vos doo sick do gid up, anyhow. I don’d t’ink anypoty lost me, dot I shoult go hoonding vor mine-selluf. Oxcoose me!”

“That sounds like Diamond,” said Merriwell. “Is he gone? Hello! Jack old boy, are you in your tent?”

To this there was, of course, no reply.

“It’s Diamond all right, I guess,” said Hodge, tumbling out. “At any rate, he isn’t in his blanket.”

“Is anyone else missing?” asked Merriwell.

He looked around on the gathering company. John Caribou was there, and had been one of the first to appear.

Merriwell funneled his hands and sent back a resounding “Yee-ho-o!” Then he shouted:

“All right, old man; we’ll be with you in a minute!”

Hans Dunnerwust pulled the blanket down off his face and inquired timidly:

“Is I goin’ do leaf eferypoty? I dink somepoty petter sday py me till he come pack. I don’d pen britty veil!”

“Perhaps some one had better remain at the camp,” said Merriwell, with a wink. “Otherwise the wolves will come and eat up our provisions.”

Hans came out from under the blanket as if he had been suddenly stung by wasps.

“Vollufs!” he gasped. “Meppe dey voult ead der brovisions instit uf me, t’inkin’ I vos dhem! Shimminy Gristmas! Vollufs! Vy didn’t you tolt me dere vos vollufs on dis islant?”

Merriwell did not answer. Having sent back that call to Diamond, he hurried into his clothing. Then he ran from the tents in the direction of the calls, with John Caribou running at his side, and the other members of the party trailing behind.

“Vait!” Hans was bawling. “Vot made me in such a hurry do run avay from you?”

Then he heard the crashing of the bushes, and, thinking the wolves were coming, he picked up a gun and a heavy case of ammunition and hastened out of the tent.

“Vait!” he screeched. “Vait! Vait!”

He was in his white nightshirt, and his head and feet were bare. With the gun in his right hand and the heavy ammunition case tucked under his left arm, he was as comical a figure as moonlight ever revealed, as he wallowed and panted after his comrades.

“This way!” shouted Diamond, hearing their movements.

The big cats began to grow uneasy, for they, too, heard that rush of footsteps across the island, though the sound was still some distance away. One of them got up and walked to the foot of the ledge, as if it had half a notion to climb up and try conclusions with Diamond at close quarters. But it merely stretched up to its full height against the rock and drew its claws rasping down the face of the rock as if to sharpen them.

“Not a pleasant sound,” was Diamond’s grim thought.

The loup-cervier retreated, after having gone through this suggestive performance, and again sat bolt upright beside its mate and stared at the prisoner with shiny bright eyes.

But they became more and more uneasy, as the sounds of hurrying feet came nearer and nearer, and at last rose from their sitting posture.

Once more Diamond funneled his hands.

“Don’t come too fast,” he cautioned. “There are some wildcats here that I want you to shoot. You’ll scare them away.”

“All that scare for that!” laughed Merriwell, dropping into a walk. “I thought he was in some deadly peril.”

“I’m just wanting a wildcat,” said Hodge, pushing forward his gun to hold it in readiness. “No close season on wildcats, is there, Merry?”

“Think not,” Merriwell answered. “You go on that side with Browning and Caribou, and I will go on this side. Look out how you shoot. Don’t bring down one of us, instead of a wildcat.”

“Vait! Vait!” came faintly to their ears from Hans, who was struggling through the bushes, having fallen far behind in spite of his frantic haste. “Vai-t-t!”

As a seeming answer came the report of Merriwell’s gun.

One of the cats, scared by the noise of the approaching force, sprang away from the foot of the rock and scampered toward the cover of the trees. Merriwell saw it as it ran and fired.

Instantly there was an ear-splitting howl.

The other cat leaped in the other direction and was shot at by Bart Hodge.

The young Virginian descended from the ledge in anything but a pleasant mood.

“They’re loup-cerviers, and they had me treed nicely,” he said; “but you got one of them, for I heard it kicking in the bushes after it let out that squall. I tumbled into their nest a while ago and that seemed to make them more than ordinarily pugnacious. I came——”

He stopped and stared. At Merriwell’s side he saw John Caribou, and he had been about to announce that he had followed Caribou and seen him row out into the lake. Clearly he had been mistaken.

“What?” asked Merriwell.

“Better see if I’m right about that cat,” suggested Diamond, his brain given a sudden and unpleasant whirl.

He was not in error about the cat, whatever he had been about the guide. The biggest of the loup-cerviers was found dead in the leaves, where it had fallen at the crack of Merriwell’s rifle.

While they dragged it out and talked about it, the young Virginian gave himself up to some serious thinking. If that was not John Caribou he had followed—and he saw now that it could not have been—who was it?

The question was easier asked than answered.

However, he decided to speak only to Merriwell about it for the present, and began to frame some sort of a story that should satisfactorily explain to the others why he had left the camp.

Hans Dunnerwust came flying into their midst, dropping his gun and the case of ammunition.

“Vollufs!” he gurgled. “One py my site peen shoost now! I snapped his teeth ad me. Didn’d you see him?”

Hans’ wolf was the loup-cervier, which had run close by him as it scampered away.

“Only a wildcat,” Merriwell explained, as he turned to Diamond.

“A viltgat!” screamed Hans. “Dot vos vorser yit. Say, I peen doo sick do sday on dis islant any lonker. Vollufs mid wiltgats! Dunder und blitzens! Dis vos an awvul blace!”

CHAPTER III.
HANS GOES FISHING.

The next morning the ledge of rock was visited where Diamond had his adventure with the big cats, and he and Merriwell searched along the shore for some marks of the canoe in which the nocturnal visitor had made off. No young loup-cerviers were found, though a hole was discovered between some roots near the base of the rock, which the cats had no doubt used.

“I don’t understand it,” the young Virginian admitted, referring to the man he had seen sneak away from the camp. “The only thing I can imagine is that it must have been some one who hoped to steal something.”

“Yes,” said Merriwell, thinking of the suspicions Diamond had harbored against the guide. “Do you suppose Caribou could give us any ideas on the subject, if we should tell him about it?”

“Don’t tell him,” advised Diamond, who still clung to the opinion that John Caribou was not “square.”

The coming of daylight drove away the terrors that had haunted Hans Dunnerwust during the night. He became bold, boastful, almost loquacious.

When the sun was an hour high and its rays had searched out and sent every black shadow scurrying away, Hans took a pole and line and some angle worms and went out to a rocky point on the lake, declaring his intention of catching some trout for dinner. He might have had better luck if he had pushed off the shore in one of the canoes and gone fly fishing: but no one wanted to go with him just then, and he was afraid to trust himself alone in a canoe, lest he might upset. This was a very wholesome fear, and saved Merriwell much anxiety concerning the safety of the Dutch lad.

“Yaw!” grunted Hans, after he had found a comfortable seat and had thrown his baited hook into the water. “Now ve vill haf some veeshes. I don’d peen vrightened py no veeshes. Uf I oben my moud and swaller do dot pait mit der hook on id, den der veeshes run mit der line and blay me!”

He had slipped a cork on the line. The cork gave a downward bob and disappeared for a moment in the water.

But before Hans could jerk, it came to the surface; where it lay, without further movement.

“Dose veeshes vos skeered py me, I subbose!” soliloquized Hans, eying the cork and ready to jerk the moment it appeared ready to dip under again.

Finally he pulled out the hook and, to his delight and surprise, found that the bait was gone.

“Hunkry like vollufs!” he said; then glanced nervously around, as if he feared the very thought of wolves might conjure up the dreaded creatures. “Vell, I vill feed mineselluf again mit anodder vorm.”

Baiting the hook he tossed it again.

Hardly was the cork on the wave when it went under. Instantly Hans gave so terrific a jerk that the hook went flying over his head and lodged in the low boughs of a cedar.

“A troudt!” gurgled Hans, in a perfect spasm of delight. “Vot I tolt you, eh? A trout gid me der very virst jerk! Who vos id say dose veesh coultn’t gadch me?”

A little horned pout, or catfish, about three inches long, was dangling at the end of the line. It had swallowed the hook almost down to its tail.

Hans Dunnerwust’s fat hands fairly shook as he disengaged the line and tried to get the hook out of the pout’s mouth.

“Wow! Dunder und blitzens!” he screeched, dropping the pout with surprising suddenness and executing a war dance on the shore, while he caressed one of his fingers from which oozed a tiny drop of blood.

“Shimminy Gristmas! I ditn’d know dot dose troudt had a sdinger like a rattlesnake. I vost kilt!”

He hopped up and down like a toad on hot coals.

“Hello! What’s the matter?”

Frank Merriwell came round the angle of the rocky shore at that moment, seated in one of the canoes.

“Why are you dancing?” he asked.

Hans subdued the cry that welled to his lips, trying to straighten his face and conceal every evidence of pain.

“I shust caught a troudt,” he declared, with pride, “und scracht mineselluf der pushes on.”

He held up the little horned pout that was still on the hook.

Merriwell propelled the prow against the shore and leaped out, drawing the canoe after him.

“Yes; that’s a fine fish,” he admitted, trying to repress a smile of amusement.

Hans was so jubilant and triumphant that it seemed a pity to undeceive him.

“Und dot hunkry!” cried Hans, forgetting the pain. “He vos more hunkrier as a vollufs. See how dot pait ead him und den dry do svaller der line. I don’d know, py shimminy, how I dot hook gid oudt uf my stomach!”

“Cut it open,” Merriwell advised.

“My stomach? Und me alife und kickin’ like dot? Look oudt! Dot troudt haf got a sdinger apout him some blace.”

Merriwell gave the pout its quietus by rapping it with a stick on the head, and then watched Hans’ antics during the cutting out of the hook.

“Uf dey are hunkry like dot,” said Hans, tossing the line again into the water, “ve vill half more vor dinner as der troudt can ead.”

“Spit on the bait,” suggested Merriwell. “It makes the angle worm wiggle and that attracts the fish. If you had some tobacco to chew I expect you could catch twice as many.”

Hans made a wry face.

“Oxcoose me! I vos—— Look oudt!” he squawked, giving the line another terrific jerk. “Shimminy Gristmas! Did you seen dot? Dot cork vent oudt uf sight shust like a skyrocket.”

The bait was still intact and he tossed in the line again.

“Dere must be a poarting house down dere someveres dot don’t half much on der taple, py der vay dose troudt been so hunkry,” the Dutch boy humorously observed. “Look oudt! he vos piting again!”

He gave another jerk, and this time landed a pout double the size of the first.

His “luck” continued, to his unbounded delight; and in a little while he had a respectable string of fish.

“Who told me I couldn’t veesherman?” he exultantly demanded, struggling to his feet and waddling as fast as he could go to where the last pout was flopping on the grass. “He haf swallered dot hook again clean to his toes. Efery dime I haf do durn mineselluf inside oudt to gid der hook!”

The horns of the pout got in their work this time, and Hans stumbled about in a lively dance, holding his injured hand.

“Dose troudt sding like a rattlesnake,” he avowed. “Der peen leetle knifes py der side fins on, und ven he flipflop I sdick does knifes indo him. Mine gootness! Id veel vorser as a horned!”

“Shall I send for John Caribou?” asked Merriwell. “He has some tobacco.”

Hans glanced at him in a hurt way, then extracted the hook, put on another worm, and resumed his fishing.

A pout bit instantly, and Hans derricked it out as before; but the line flew so low this time that it caught Hans about the neck, and the pout dropped down in front, just under his chin, where it flopped and struggled in liveliest fashion.

“Dake id off!” Hans yelled. “Dake id off!”

Merriwell tried to go to his assistance, but only succeeded in drawing the line tighter about Hans’ neck.

“If you’ll stand still a minute, I can untangle the line, but I can’t do anything while you’re threshing about and screeching that way,” he declared.

The pout flopped up and struck Hans in the face, and thrust the point of one of its fins into his breast as it dropped back.

This was too much for the Dutch boy’s endurance, and the next moment he was rolling on the ground, meshing himself more and more in the snarl of the line, and getting a fresh jab from one of the pout’s stingers at each revolution.

“Hellup! Fire! Murter!” he yelled.

Finally the pout was broken loose, and Merriwell succeeded in making Hans understand that the dreaded stingers could no longer trouble him.

Hans sat up, a woe-begone figure. He was bound hand and foot by the line as completely as Gulliver was bound by the Lilliputians.

“Are you much hurt?” Merriwell asked.

“Much hurted?” Hans indignantly snorted. “I vos kilt alretty! Dose knifes peen sduck in me in more as sefendeen hundret blaces. Bevore dose troudt come a-veeshin’ vor me again I vill break my neck virst.”

It was impossible to untie the line, so Merriwell took out his knife and cut it.

“This was an accident,” he said. “I shan’t say anything about it to the others. Take the fish to camp, and we’ll have them for dinner. They’re good to eat.”

As indeed they were.

Thereupon Hans’ courage came back. He washed his hands and face in the lake, carefully strung the pouts on a piece of the severed line, then waddled to camp with them, with all the proud bearing of a major-general.

Frank Merriwell sat for a time on the point of rock, looking out across Lily Bay. Then he started, as the sound of the deep baying of hounds came to him from the mainland.

“They’re after some poor deer, probably,” was his thought. “The only way to make a deerhound pay attention to the close season is to tie him to his kennel.”

Though the sounds drew nearer, the dogs were concealed from view in the woods of the mainland by a bend of the island.

At last there arose such a clamor that Merriwell entered the canoe and paddled quickly round the point in the direction of the sound.

He came on a sight that thrilled him. A large buck, with a finely-antlered head, had taken to the water to escape the hounds, and was swimming across an arm of the bay, with the dogs in close pursuit. Only the heads of the dogs were visible above the water, but he saw that they were large and powerful animals.

At almost the same moment Merriwell beheld John Caribou rush down the opposite shore and leap into a canoe—the other canoe belonging to the camping party.

“What can Caribou have been doing over on the mainland?” thought Frank. “Oh, yes; probably looking for another camping place, for we were talking about changing last night.”

Caribou cried out to the hounds, trying to turn them from their prey; and, failing in this, he pushed out in the canoe and paddled with all speed toward the buck.

The hounds had overtaken it, and it had turned at bay, having found a shallow place where it could get a footing.

The largest hound swam round and round it, avoiding its lowered head; then tried to fasten on its flanks.

The buck shook it off, and waded to where the water was still shallower, in toward the shore.

The dogs followed, circling round and round.

Caribou shouted another command and paddled faster than ever.

The shout of the guide and the buck’s deadly peril now caused Frank Merriwell to push out also, and soon he was paddling as fast as he could toward the deer and the dogs. But the separating distance was considerable.

The shallower water aided the biggest hound, for it got a footing with its long legs and sprang at the buck’s throat. The buck shook the hound off and struck with its antlers.

“That’s it!” Merriwell whispered, excitedly. “Give it to them!”

The attacks of the three dogs kept the buck turning, but it met its assailants with great gallantry and spirit. When the big hound flew at its throat again, it got its antlers under him and flung him howling through the air, to strike the water with a splashing blow and sink from sight.

“Good enough!” cried Merriwell. “Do it again!”

The other hounds seemed not in the least bit frightened by this mishap to their comrade, but crowded nearer, trying to get hold of the buck’s throat.

The big hound came to the surface almost immediately, none the worse for its involuntary flight and submergence, and swam back to the assault.

Merriwell looked at Caribou, who was now standing up in the canoe and sending it along with tremendous strokes.

“Hurrah!” Merry cried, not taking time to stop, however. “I’m coming, Caribou, to help you.”

The largest hound again flew at the buck’s throat, while one of the others, getting a foothold, climbed to the buck’s back.

But the advantage of the hounds was only temporary. The big hound was again caught on those terrible antlers, impaled this time, and when it was hurled through the air to sink again on the lake it did not rise.

The hound that still remained in the water in front of the buck, now caught the latter by the nose, and the buck fell with a threshing sound. It rose, though, shaking off both hounds.

“Hurrah!” screamed Merry, sending his canoe skimming over the water. “Hurrah! Hurrah!”

So admirable and plucky was the fight the buck was making that he was fairly wild with admiration and delight.

John Caribou was close to the buck, and still standing up in his canoe.

The hound that caught the buck by the nose now received a thrust that tore open its side and put him out of the fight; but the other one again leaped to the buck’s hip and hung there, refusing to be dislodged.

At this hound John Caribou struck with his heavy paddle.

The blow was a true one. It tumbled the hound into the water, where the guide came near following.

While Caribou sought to recover his balance, the buck, mistaking him for a new enemy, turned on him and made a savage dash that hurled him from the canoe.

Frank Merriwell was now so near that he could see the buck’s fiery eyes, note the ridging of hair along its spine, and could hear its labored and angry breathing. Its tongue protruded and was foam-flecked.

Caribou tried to seize the sides of the canoe as he went down, but the effort only served to hurl it from him, and send it spinning out into the lake.

The buck put down its head for a rush; while the hound that the guide had struck with the paddle blade did not try to renew the fight, but began to swim toward the shore, which was not distant.

“Look out!” cried Merriwell, warningly.

Caribou heard the cry, saw the antlers go down and tried to dive. But he was not quick enough. Before he was under water the buck struck him a vicious blow.

Though half stunned, he clutched it by the antlers, to which he clung desperately, while the buck struck him again, this time with one of its sharp hoofs.

Caribou, realizing that his life was in peril, tried to get out his knife, but the enraged and crazed buck bore him backward with so irresistible a rush that Caribou was kept from doing this. Then he went under the water again.

This time the buck seemed determined to hold him down till he was drowned. Merry saw the guide’s hands and feet beating the water, and knew from their motions that he was rapidly weakening.

“I’m coming!” he shouted, though he must have known that the guide could hardly hear or comprehend.

With one deep pull on the paddle he put the canoe fairly against the buck; then rising to his feet, he brought the blade down with crushing force across the animal’s spine.

The buck half fell into the water and the antlered head was lifted.

When John Caribou came to the surface Merriwell clutched him by the hair and pulled him against the side of the canoe, regardless of the buck’s threatening attitude. Then, seeing that Caribou was drowning, he lifted him still higher, so that the water no longer touched Caribou’s face and head.

The buck put down its horns as if it meditated another rush. Merriwell remained quiet, holding the guide’s dripping head. He had a rifle in the bottom of the canoe, but he did not wish to use it unless driven to kill the buck in self-defense. More than all else he did not want to let go of the guide.

The buck stood for a moment in this pugilistic attitude; then, understanding it was not to be attacked, it turned slowly and waded toward the land.

The hound that had preceded it had disappeared, and the other two were dead.

“How are you feeling, Caribou?” Merry anxiously asked, drawing the guide’s head still higher.

There was no answer, and Merriwell lifted the guide bodily into the canoe. Great caution was required to do this, together with the expenditure of every ounce of strength that Merriwell possessed.

A ringing and encouraging cheer came from the shore of the island, where the other members of the party had gathered, drawn by the baying of the hounds and the noise of the subsequent fight.

Merriwell had no power of lung to send back a reply. Instead he sank down by Caribou’s side and began an effort to restore him to consciousness.

This was successful in a little while. The guide opened his black eyes and stared about, then tried to get up. He comprehended at once what had occurred, and a look of gratitude came to his dark face.

“You’re worth a dozen drowned men,” announced Merry, in his cheeriest voice. “If you can lie in that water a little while without too much discomfort, I’ll try to catch your canoe with this one. The waves are carrying it down the bay.”

John Caribou did not seem to hear this. His eyes were fixed on Merry’s face.

“Caribou, him not forget soon! Not forget soon!”

Only a few words, but they were said so earnestly that Merriwell could not fail to understand the deep thankfulness that lay behind them.

CHAPTER IV.
HANS DUNNERWUST SHOOTS A DEER.

Two days later Merriwell’s party moved from the island to a high, dry point on the mainland, where the tents were repitched and where they hoped to spend the remainder of their stay on Lily Bay. It was an ideal camping place, and freer from mosquitoes than the island had been.

Hans told Merriwell quite privately that the stings of those island mosquitoes were almost as bad as the stings of the “trout” he had caught.

Except that the sun was torridly hot during the midday hours, the weather was almost perfect. The skies were clear and blue, the bay placid. Trout, genuine trout, took the hook readily. The canoeing was all that could be desired. Merriwell, too, had secured some splendid views of wild life with his ever-ready camera. One of the finest of these was a trout leaping. When developed, the photograph showed the trout in the air above the surface of the lake, with the water falling from it in silvery drops, and its scales glinting in the sunlight.

Another fine view was a moonlight scene of a portion of Lily Bay, from the headland where Hans had done his fishing.

“I shall always regret that I didn’t snap the camera on that buck while he was making such a gallant fight against those dogs,” Merriwell often declared. “That would have been great. But really, I was so excited over the buck’s peril that I entirely forgot that I had a camera.”

But he had caught other scenes and views, that were highly satisfactory, if they did not quite compensate for the fine scene of the combat between the hounds and the buck. Whose the hounds were they had no means of knowing, but Caribou suggested that they probably belonged to a gentleman who had a cottage not far from Capen’s.

Highly as Merriwell regarded John Caribou, there could be no doubt that there was something mysterious about his movements. Merriwell had once seen him steal out of camp in the dead of night, an act for which the guide had no adequate explanation when questioned. In fact, Merriwell’s questioning threw Caribou into singular confusion.

The day the camp was moved, Jack Diamond saw the guide meet a stranger in the woods, to whom he talked for a long time in the concealment of some bushes, in a manner that was undeniably surreptitious. Still, Merry clung to his belief in the guide’s honesty.

Hans Dunnerwust had become valiant and boastful since his great success at catching “trout.” He wanted to further distinguish himself.

“Uf I could shood somedings!” Merriwell once overheard him say in longing tones.

This remark, which Hans had only whispered to himself, as it were, came back to Merriwell with humorous force a couple of days after the setting up of the camp on the mainland.

“If only Hans could have come across this!” he exclaimed.

It was a dead doe lying in the woods not far from the camp. It had been shot, and after a long run had died where Merriwell had found it, nor had it been dead a great while.

“The work of poachers,” said Merriwell, with a feeling of ineffable contempt for men who could find it in their hearts to slaughter deer in this disgraceful and unlawful manner. “I wish the strong hand of the law could fall on some of those fellows.”

This was not the first evidence he had seen that poachers were carrying on their dastardly work around that portion of Moosehead Lake known as Lily Bay. A wounded deer had been noticed and distant shots had more than once been heard. He was beginning to believe that the dogs which had followed and attacked the buck belonged to these poachers.

After pushing the deer curiously about with his foot, Merriwell was about to turn away, when he chanced to see Hans Dunnerwust waddling down the dim path, gun in hand. It was plain that if Hans continued in his present course he could hardly fail to see the dead deer.

“Just the thing!” Merriwell whispered, while a broad smile came to his face. “If I don’t have some fun with Hans I’m a Dutchman myself!”

He put down his camera and rifle, and, lifting the body of the doe, stood it up against a small tree. By means of ingenious propping, he contrived to make it stand on its stiff legs and to give it somewhat of a natural appearance.

“It’s natural enough to fool Dunnerwust, anyway!” he muttered, picking up the camera and gun and sliding into the nearby bushes.

Hans came down the path, carrying his rifle like a veteran sportsman. He was looking for game, and he found it. His eyes widened like saucers when he saw the deer standing in the bushes by the tree.

“Shimminy Gristmas!” he gurgled. “Id don’d seen me, eidher! Uf dot deer don’d shood me, I like to know vot vos der madder mit me, anyhow! You pet me, I pud a palls righd t’rough ids head und ids liver. A veller can shood a teers dot don’d ged any horns, I subbose, mitoudt giddin’ arresded py dose game vardens! I vill shood him, anyhow, uf I can. Yaw! You pet me!”

He dropped to his knees, then began a stealthy approach, for the purpose of putting himself within what he considered good shooting distance. He was less than eighty yards from the game when he first saw it, but he knew so little about rifles that he doubted if his gun would carry so far. It is not easy for a fat boy to crawl stealthily sixty yards on his hands and knees, dragging a gun along the ground, but that was the task that Hans Dunnerwust now set for himself.

Merriwell, hidden in the bushes, shook with laughter, as Hans began this cautious advance. When half the distance was passed, Hans rose to a half upright posture and stared hard at the deer. This was an opportunity for which Merriwell had been waiting. He drew down on Hans the camera, but scarcely able to sight it accurately for laughing. The picture caught, showed Hans all a-tremble with eagerness, his mouth wide open, his eyes distended and staring.

Assured that his game was still in position by the tree, Hans got down on his hands and knees again and made another slow advance.

When no more than twenty yards separated him from the deer, he lifted himself very cautiously and drew up the gun to take aim. He was shaking so badly he could hardly hold the weapon. Merriwell focused the camera on him at this instant and caught another view of this great hunter of the Moosehead country.

As he took the camera down, he saw Hans trying to shoot the gun without having cocked it. Again and again Hans pulled the trigger, without result.

“If only some of the other fellows were here!” Merriwell groaned, fairly holding his sides. “He’s shaking so I’m afraid he won’t hit the deer, after all.”

He had arranged the deer so that the slightest touch would cause it to fall.

Hans put down the gun and anxiously turned it over. Then Merriwell saw his puzzled face lighten. He had found out why the weapon would not go off.

This time when he lifted the rifle it was cocked. Then he pressed the trigger.

When the whiplike report sounded, the deer gave a staggering lurch and fell headlong.

Hans Dunnerwust could not repress a cheer. He sprang to his feet, swinging his cap, and ran toward the fallen doe as fast as his short, fat legs would carry him.

“Id’s kilt me! Id’s kilt me!” he was shouting.

Fearing it might not be quite dead, he stopped and drew his hunting knife. It did not rise, however, it did not even kick, and, made bold by these circumstances, Hans waddled up to it and began to slash it with the fury of a lunatic.

“Whoop!” he screeched. “I god id! I shooded id! I vos a teer gilt! Who said dot Hans Dunnerwust coult nod shood somedings, eh?”

Merriwell trained the camera on him once more, as he stood in this ferocious attitude, with the knife extended, from which no blood dripped, and looked triumphantly down at the deer at his feet. Then Merry rose and advanced.

Hans turned when he heard the snapping of the bushes, and was about to bolt from the place, but, seeing that it was Merriwell, he changed his mind and began to dance and caper like a crazy boy.

“You see dot?” he screeched, proudly pointing to the dead doe. “Dot vos a teer vot kilt me shust now. Tidn’t you heered id shood me?”

Merriwell’s face assumed a look of consternation.

“I’m very sorry you did that,” he declared.

“Vy? Vot you mean py dot?” Hans gasped.

“The game wardens are likely to hear of it.”

The face of the Dutch boy took on such a sickly look of fright that Merriwell relented.

“But you didn’t think, I suppose?”

“Yaw! Dot vos id.” Hans asserted. “Id shooded me pefore I know mineselluf.”

“Perhaps it will be all right for you to take the head in to show the boys what you have done,” Merriwell suggested.

This was pleasing to Hans, and so in line with his heart’s desire, that he immediately decapitated the doe, and proudly bore the head into the camp, as proof of his skill as a deer-stalker.

CHAPTER V.
MOOSEHEAD EXPRESS.

“A moose!”

“Cricky! Isn’t he a fine one?”

“Him plenty big!”

The first exclamation was from Merriwell, the second from Bruce Browning, the third from John Caribou, the guide.

The three were in a canoe, which had been creeping along the wooded shore of a narrow arm of Lily Bay.

“Reach me the camera,” whispered Merriwell.

The camera was at Browning’s feet and was quickly handed up.

John Caribou was sitting in one end of the canoe as silently as an image of bronze.

The big moose that had not yet seen them, stepped from the trees into full view, outlining itself on a jutting headland, as it looked across the sheet of water.

Even the impassive guide was moved to admiration. A finer sight was never beheld. The moose was a very giant of its kind. With its huge bulk towering on the rocky point, its immense palmated antlers uplifted, its attitude that of expectant attention, it presented a picture that could never be forgotten.

Frank Merriwell lifted the camera, carefully focused it on the big beast and pressed the button.

He was about to repeat the performance when something stirred in the trees a hundred yards or more to the left, and Hans Dunnerwust came into view.

He did not see the canoe and its occupants, but he saw the moose, and he stopped stock still, as if in doubt whether to retreat or proceed on his way.

The moose had turned and was looking straight at him, with staring, fear-filled eyes. Then it wheeled with surprising quickness for so large a beast and shambled off the headland toward the water’s edge.

This increased Hans’ courage. He was always very brave when anything showed fear of him. He had been on the point of turning in flight, but now he sprang clear of the trees, and ran toward the moose with a shout.

“A teer! A teer! Another teer!” he screeched, waving has hand and his gun.

Merriwell snapped the camera on the moose as it scrambled down the slope.

“Might have another negative of it standing, if Hans hadn’t put in an appearance,” he declared, feeling at the moment as if he wished he might give the Dutch boy a good shaking.

But he had reason in a little while to call down blessings on the head of Hans for this unintentional intervention.

Frightened by Hans’ squawking and the noise he made in running, the moose dashed up and down the shore for a few moments, then took to the lake.

“There he goes,” whispered Browning, roused to a state of excitement.

“Plenty skeer!” said Caribou. “Sometime moose him skeer ver’ easy.”

“He’s going to swim for the other shore,” declared Merriwell, putting down the camera and then picking it up again.

For a few yards the frightened moose made a tremendous splashing, but when it got down to business, it sank from sight, with the exception of its black neck and head and broad antlers, and forged through the water at a very respectable rate of speed.

Merriwell focused the camera on the swimming animal and was sure he got a good picture, then put down the camera and picked up his rifle. He wanted to get nearer the big beast, and he knew he would feel safer with a weapon in his hands in the event of its urgent need.

“Fun now, if want?” said the guide, suggestively, looking toward the moose with shining eyes. “Much fun with big bull moose in water some time.”

“A little fun won’t hurt us, if it doesn’t hurt the moose,” responded Merriwell, who as yet hardly knew just what was in the guide’s mind. “Eh, Browning?”

“Crowd along,” consented Browning. “I don’t mind getting close enough to that fellow to get a good look at him. If it wasn’t out of season I’d have that head of horns!”

“Aren’t they magnificent?” asked Merriwell, with enthusiasm.

The guide looked at Merriwell as if to receive his assent.

Hans Dunnerwust had rushed to the shore in a wild burst of speed, and was now hopping wildly.

Suddenly he caught sight of Merriwell and the others in the canoe.

“A teer! A teer!” he shrieked. “Didn’t you seen him? He roon vrum me like a bolicemans, t’inking dot he voult shood me. Put noddings vouldn’t shood me oudt uf seasons!”

“I don’t know about that,” grunted Browning. “Fools, as game, are never out of season, and the fool-killer is always gunning for them.”

“Yes; go on,” said Merriwell to the guide. “As I said, a little fun won’t hurt us if it isn’t of a kind to hurt the moose. See how he is swimming! That’s a sight to stir the most prosaic heart.”

John Caribou did not need urging. He dipped the paddle deeply into the water, and the canoe shot away in pursuit of the swimming animal.

The moose was already some distance from land, and forging ahead with powerful strokes; but under the skillful paddling of the guide the canoe quickly decreased the intervening distance.

It was worth something just to watch John Caribou handle the broad-bladed paddle. He dipped it with so light a touch that scarcely a ripple was produced; but when he pulled on it in a way that fairly bent the stout blade, the canoe seemed literally to leap over the waves. Every motion was that of unstudied grace.

Browning could not remain stolid and impassive under circumstances that would almost pump the blood through the veins of a corpse. He grew as enthusiastic as Merriwell.

“See the old fellow go!” he whispered, referring to the speed of the moose. “He’s cutting through the water like a steamboat.”

The guide rose to his feet, still wielding the paddle.

“We’ll be right on top of him in a minute,” said Merriwell. “Look out there, Caribou! He may turn on us. We don’t want to have a fight with him, you know.”

Caribou did not answer. He only gave the canoe another strong drive forward, then dropped the paddle and caught up an end of the canoe’s tow line, in which he made a running noose.

He stood erect, awaiting a good opportunity to throw the line. The canoe swept on under the propulsion that had been given it. Then the noose left Caribou’s hand, hurled with remarkable precision, and fell gracefully over the broad antlers. Instantly Caribou grasped the paddle and whirled the canoe about so that the stern became the bow.

“Hurrah!” cried Merriwell, half expecting that the moose would now turn on them to give them battle. “That was a handsome throw. I didn’t know you were equal to the tricks of a cowboy, Caribou.”

The guide did not answer. Very likely he did not know the meaning of the word cowboy.

In another instant the line tightened, and they were yanked swiftly along.

“Towed by a moose!” exclaimed Browning. “That’s a new sensation, Merry!”

“Yes; this is great. This is what you might call moose-head express,” laughed Frank.

“It’s enough to make a fellow feel romantic, anyway,” grunted Browning. “Pulled by a moose on Moosehead Lake, with an Indian guide to do the steering.”

The moose was now badly frightened, and showed signs of wanting to turn around, whereupon the guide picked up the paddle and gave it a tap on the side of the head.

This brought a floundering objection from the scared animal, but it had, nevertheless, the desired effect, for the moose again started off smartly for the opposite shore, drawing the canoe after it.

The big beast did not seem to be tired, but it puffed and panted like a steam engine.

“That’s right, Caribou,” cried Merriwell, approvingly. “Just hang on and let him go. I don’t mind a ride of this kind. It’s a sort of sport we weren’t looking for, but it’s great, just the same.”

“Much fun with big bull moose in water some time,” Caribou repeated. “Drive big moose like horse.”

Then the guide gave them an exhibition of moose driving. By yanking this way and that on the line, he was able to alter the moose’s course, and that showed that he could turn it almost at his will.

Not once did the moose seek to turn and fight as Merriwell had thought he would do if lassoed. It seemed only intent on getting away from its tormentors, and appeared to think the way to do that was to swim straight ahead toward the land as fast as it could.

Hans was still hopping up and down on the shore, and now and then sending a screech of excitement and delight across the water.

After he had shown that the moose could be turned about if desired, Caribou let the scared animal take its own course. The distance across was considerable, and he knew the moose would be tired by the swim.

He held the line, while Frank and Bruce sat in their places enjoying the novel ride to the fullest extent.

Thus the canoe was towed across the arm of the bay, giving to our friends an experience that few sportsmen or tourists are able to enjoy.

As the moose neared the shore, Caribou severed the line close up to its antlers and let it go. It was pretty well blown, as the heaviness of its breathing showed.

Scrambling out of the water, it turned half at bay, as if feeling that, with its broad hoofs planted on solid ground it could make a stand for its life; but when the occupants of the canoe showed no intention of advancing to attack it, it gave its ungainly head a toss and shambled away, the severed end of the noose floating from its antlers.

Merriwell caught up his camera and snapped it on the moose before it entered the woods, so getting a picture of a moose fresh from a swim in the lake, with its shaggy sides wet and gleaming.

Then the moose broke into an awkward run, and was soon lost to view.

A half hour later, while they were still paddling along the shore, they heard a shot from the woods, in the direction taken by the moose.

“Poachers?” said Frank, questioningly. “Do you suppose somebody has fired at our moose?”

CHAPTER VI.
AN UNPLEASANT SITUATION.

That afternoon an eccentric figure came capering through the woods, bearing a strange burden. Perhaps capering is not the exact word to use, for the figure was that of a rotund and fat-legged boy, and it is hard for such a person to caper. Ever and anon this figure sent up a pleased exclamation or a cry of delight.

“Anodder teer’s head!” he shouted, when he came in sight of the camp. “A moose’s teer head this dime, I pet you!”

It was Hans Dunnerwust, and the burden under which he waddled was the head of a moose. He tried to hold it triumphantly aloft as he shouted his announcement, and while making this attempt struck a foot against a protruding root, and went down in a heap, the antlered head falling on top of him.

“Mine gootness!” he gasped, sitting up and rubbing his stomach, while he looked excitedly around. “I t’ought, py shimminy, dot somepoty musd hid me, I go town so qvick!”

His eyes fell on the head, and the pleased look came again into his face.

“I pet you, I vill pe bleased mit Merriwell, ven he seen dhis. Dot odder teer got no hornses, und dis haf hornses like a dree sdick up. Id must pe vort more as lefendeen tollar, anyhow!”

After climbing to his feet and assuring himself that he had not sustained any serious injuries or broken bones, he picked up the heavy head and again hurried on, giving utterance to many exclamations of pleasure and delight.

Hans had found the head hanging in the branches of a tree, in a way to keep it out of the reach of carnivorous animals. Had he not been looking for a red squirrel, that had gone flickering through these very branches, he never would have discovered the head, so cleverly was it hidden.

“Dot is a petter head as dot odder vun I got,” he had whispered, wondering dully how it chanced to be there, but not for a moment thinking of poachers.

There were marks on the earth and grass showing where the moose had been skinned and cut up.

“Dose vellers don’d vand der head,” was his final conclusion, “und day chust hang id ub here. Vale, I vill dake id mineselluf, den!”

Then he had fastened his knife to a stick and, after many futile attempts, had succeeded in cutting the string by which the head was suspended from the bough.

“Whoop!” he screeched, when he drew near the tent. “Yaw. See vot got me, eh? A moose’s teer head got me de horns py!”

It was a hot afternoon, and the sweat was fairly streaming from his round, red face. He was panting, too, almost as loudly as the moose had panted while it drew the canoe across the water.

Merriwell and Diamond came to the door of one of the tents, and Browning, Bart Hodge and John Caribou looked from the other.

A more astounded party would have been hard to find.

“Where did you get that?” asked Merriwell, thinking at once of the shot they had heard in the direction taken by the moose.

“Id is a moose’s teer head,” announced Hans, holding it up. “See mine hornses?”

“I can see that it is a moose head; but where did you get it?”

The other members of the party were as surprised as Frank and equally as anxious for an answer to his questions. The guide looked as if he might have given an answer himself, but he only folded his arms and stared at the head with shining eyes and impassive features.

“Pushes vos hanging to him in a dree,” said Hans, and then, in his own peculiar way, he proceeded to make them acquainted with the manner in which he discovered it.

He put it down on the grass in front of the tent, where it was closely scrutinized.

“Same moose we saw this morning,” declared Bruce Browning, very emphatically. “Do you see that peculiar turn of the horn there? I noticed that on the fellow that towed us. Some scoundrel has shot him.”

“There can’t be any doubt of that, I guess,” admitted Merriwell, in a grieved tone. “What a magnificent beast he was, too! It is a shame. I hope the rascal will be caught and punished, but I don’t suppose he ever will be. This is a pretty wild country out here.”

“I tell you what,” said Hodge. “Whoever killed that moose will come back for the head. Those antlers are worth something, and he won’t want to lose them. How would it do to hide out there and see if we can’t capture him?”

“The only trouble about that,” objected Diamond, “is that we’d have to take the scamp before some justice of the peace and waste a lot of time in trying to get him convicted. Nothing is slower than the law, you know.”

“See there!” exclaimed Merriwell, who had been closely examining the head. “He was shot in the head, just back of this ear.”

John Caribou pressed forward and looked at the bullet hole. He carried a rifle himself that threw a big ball like that.

Merriwell did not know whether to reprove Hans or not for bringing the head to camp, and let the question pass, while they talked of the dead moose and the poachers, and discussed the advisability of trying to capture those slippery gentlemen.

John Caribou disappeared within a tent and came out shortly with his long rifle.

“Where are you going?” Merriwell questioned. “Not after the poachers now?”

Caribou shook his head and held up his empty pipe.

“Tobac’ all gone,” he said. “No tobac’, Caribou him no good. Friend down here got tobac’. Come back soon.”

He waved the pipe toward the timber as if to point out the direction of the home of this friend.

There was an unfathomable look on Caribou’s face which Frank did not like. The guide had said nothing about being out of tobacco before that time, and the conviction was forced that this was merely an excuse to enable him to get out of the camp.

Jack Diamond, who had all along doubted John Caribou’s honesty, gave Merry a triumphant and questioning glance.

“I don’t think you had better go just now,” objected Merriwell. “We may need you here in the camp.”

“No tobac’,” said Caribou, doggedly. “Must have tobac’!”

He did not try to parley, but threw his gun on his shoulder and struck out for the woods.

“That fellow is up to some dirt,” averred Jack Diamond. “You mark my words now. He has plenty of tobacco. If I’m not mistaken, I saw him have a whole pouchful this morning.”

Merriwell wanted to defend the reputation of the guide, but he felt that he could not satisfactorily explain Caribou’s queer action.

“Let’s not judge him hastily. He has certainly been all that the most exacting could ask of a guide, and I don’t see why we should now conclude that he will act otherwise.”

That was as much as Merry could say.

Not having decided what to do with the head of the moose, it was permitted to lie on the ground in front of the tent, where Dunnerwust had put it.

Caribou had said he would be back soon, but the slow hours went by without bringing him.

“He’s up to some deviltry,” said Diamond. “I saw it in his eye when he started. Of course, I haven’t an idea what it can be, but we’ll know soon enough, I don’t doubt.”

To this Merriwell could not make a satisfactory reply. Still, he believed that John Caribou was all right, in spite of his strange actions, and so expressed himself, though he could not deny to himself that he was beginning to feel uneasy as the time passed without bringing the guide.

“There he comes,” announced Hodge, shortly before sunset.

Bart was collecting fuel for a fire. This was work devolving upon the guide, but the guide’s continued absence required them to set about preparations for getting supper themselves.

Merriwell, who was standing near him, looked in the direction indicated, where the form of a man was to be seen moving among the trees.

“Caribou’s coming,” he cried, putting his head into the tent where Diamond sat with Bruce Browning.

“It isn’t he, though!” corrected Hodge, almost instantly. “The chap is a stranger. Yes; and there are others with him.”

All the members of the party now came out in front of the tents and looked at the men emerging from the woods.

The men were armed, and came straight toward the camp. As they drew near they glanced with meaning smiles of satisfaction at the antlered head of the elk.

Merriwell did not fancy their appearance nor the way in which they stared at him and his friends.

As he looked at them, like a sudden blow came the intuitive knowledge that these men were game wardens. There could have been no more damaging evidence against a camping party than the head of a freshly slain moose found in the camp at that time of year.

“I could wish that moose head was in the lake,” he muttered under his breath. “It’s going to put us in a bad hole, if these chaps are game wardens.”

Still he maintained the utmost outward composure.

The largest of the men stepped forward, dropped a hand menacingly on his gun, and sternly announced:

“You are under arrest!”

Hans Dunnerwust gave a shriek of fright and dived into the nearest tent.

Diamond’s dark face flushed angrily, while Bart Hodge and Bruce Browning variously showed their surprise and displeasure.

“On what charge?” Merriwell demanded, though he did not need to ask.

“Killing game out of season,” said the spokesman, glancing at the head of the moose. “I am a game warden, and these are my deputies, and the law makes it our duty to arrest you.”

“Just a question,” interrupted Diamond. “Did anyone send you here to make this arrest?”

The officer hesitated, then, without answering, took out a pencil and a piece of paper.

“There is a reward, is there not, for information leading to such an arrest?” continued Diamond. “I am sure there is, so you needn’t answer that question if you do not choose.”

Merriwell did not need to inquire what Diamond meant by those interrogations. The belief had come to Diamond that John Caribou had hurried to these officers, and, for the expected reward, had told them that the people in camp on the shore of Lily Bay were poachers.

“Going into the business pretty bold,” observed another of the officers, discovering the head of the doe, which had been tossed out some distance from the tents. “A moose and a deer. Dead to rights on two heavy charges, anyway.”

“See here,” said Merriwell, striving to remain cool. “I will agree that appearances are against us; but I declare to you, just the same, that we are law-abiding people and not poachers. If you will listen to us we can tell you just how we came by both of those heads.”

“I’ll take your names first,” said the officer with the pencil and paper, in a skeptical tone.

The names were given.

“Frank Merriwell, Bruce Browning, Jack Diamond, Bart Hodge and Hans Dunnerwust,” read the officer, when he had penciled the names on the paper, “I arrest you for the violation of the game laws of the State of Maine, and shall hold you to answer accordingly.”

A gurgling speech of fear came from within the tent, where Hans was trying to hide himself under some blankets.

“Now I’ll hear your story,” said the officer, glancing at the sun, “but I warn you that we must be in a hurry, if we are to get very far on our way to-night.”

Merry reddened a little under this, in spite of his effort to keep from doing anything of the kind. The words were so palpable an indication that the officer did not intend to give the story credit!

As Merriwell had always been the soul of honor, it cut him to the quick to have his statement doubted thus in advance.

“I see that you have made up your mind against us already, Mr.——”

“Parker is my name,” said the warden, when Merriwell hesitated.

“I see that you have made up your mind to believe us guilty, Mr. Parker, in spite of anything we can show to the contrary, which you must admit is hardly fair.”

“It is not my place to decide whether you’re guilty or innocent,” said Parker. “The justice of the peace will do that.”

“I should like to see your authority for making this arrest,” demanded Diamond, firing up. “You say you are a game warden, but how do we know it? You won’t believe us, why should we believe you?”

Merriwell was intending to make this point, though in a milder way.

Parker merely smiled and drew another paper out of his pocket, which he handed to Diamond to inspect. It was a legal certificate of his official position.

“What is the penalty for violation of this Maine game law?” Hodge asked, as Diamond passed back the paper.

“One hundred dollars for each animal shot,” answered Parker.

“And an informer gets half of that for his information leading to the arrest?” said Diamond, with a keen look out of his dark eyes. “But you haven’t proved us guilty yet.”

“Pretty good proof,” declared one of the deputies, kicking the moose head. “Here’s the bullet hole, too!”

“I want you to take notice,” requested Merry, speaking to Parker, “that that hole was evidently made by a bullet much larger than anything our guns carry.”

“Not larger, than the gun shot by your guide,” was Parker’s reply.

“What do you know about him?” Diamond quickly asked.

“Your guide is John Caribou,” Parker answered. “I thought him all right, but he was seen to shoot a deer only day before yesterday. He is wanted, too.”

“Your informer was mistaken in that,” Merry very positively declared.

Diamond was bewildered. Parker’s statement was a puzzler and did not coincide with his idea that the guide had played into that officer’s hands. He knew Caribou did not shoot either the deer or the moose.

“You must be lying, that’s all,” he thought, looking the warden inquiringly in the eyes.

“Where are we to be taken?” asked Browning.

“County seat,” said Parker. “I’ll leave a man with your things here.”

“You haven’t given me a chance to explain how those heads happen to be here,” said Merriwell. “After that you may not want to hold us.”

Then he proceeded to tell why they had been brought into camp.

While making these explanations, Merry was so struck by the improbability of the account that he began to doubt if he would believe it himself, if he were in the game warden’s position. The discovery of the moose head by Hans would not have been an unlikely thing, but when to that was added the statement of why the deer head had been brought in, the entire narrative seemed to take on a fishy odor.

Parker’s face clearly showed that he thought the story concocted for the occasion.

“There’s one thing you didn’t tell,” he said, with some sarcasm, when Merriwell had concluded.

“What was that?” Frank asked.

“How you noosed the moose on the lake. One of my men saw you do that.”

“I didn’t think to mention that,” said Merriwell. “It didn’t occur to me that it had any particular bearing on the present case.”

“Why doesn’t this Dunnerwust speak for himself?” Parker asked. “I should like to have him show us where he found the moose head.”

“Hans, come out here!” Merriwell called. “The warden wants you.”

This was followed by a silence like that of the grave.

“Hans!” Merriwell sharply called again. “Come out here!”

“Maybe he’s sneaked out by the back of the tent and made a run for it,” one of the deputies suggested.

Parker stepped to the door through which he had seen the frightened Dutch boy disappear.

“By ginger, I believe you are right, Sam!” he declared. “He doesn’t seem to be in here.”

Sam darted to the rear of the tent, and Parker pushed in, followed by Merriwell, who knew that Hans was hiding.

“Where are you, Hans?” he asked, in peremptory tones.

Thereupon followed a movement of some blankets, and Hans thrust out his head like that of a turtle emerging from its shell.

He gave a squawk and drew the blanket over his head again when he saw the gun Parker carried.

“Oxcoose me! I ton’d peen to home this efening,” he chattered.

Merriwell drew away the concealing blanket, under which Hans tried to hide and to which he clung to the last moment.

There was a broad grin on Parker’s face. Hans’ terror greatly amused him, but at the same time it aided in convincing him that the party was guilty of the unlawful death of the moose.

“I peen sick py my sdomach,” Hans groaned, trying to stand on his shrinking legs. “Misder Game Varden, you don’d vos going to put yourselluf in chail, vos you? Dot mooses didn’t kill me; id fint my head ganging in dot dree. I hobe I may cross my heardt und die uf dot ain’d so!”

One of the deputies who had come to the tent door and now saw and heard Hans, broke into a roar of laughter.

“Vot vos dot vool laughing py me?” Hans snapped, his anger for the moment overcoming his fright.

“This officer wants you to take us to the place where you found the moose head,” said Merriwell.

He was thinking of Caribou, even as he said this, and vainly trying to find a reason for the guide’s strange departure and stranger absence.

Jack Diamond was also thinking of Caribou, while his heart warmed loyally toward Merriwell. He had not set his opinion against Merry’s because of any pig-headed obstinacy. It hurt him to think ill of the guide; still, he believed he was correct in his first opinion that Caribou was not a man to be trusted, and he was equally sure now that Caribou had sold the party into the hands of the game warden for the purpose of obtaining a reward. If the guide got fifty dollars for each man convicted and for each case against that man, he would receive five hundred dollars, an immense sum to such a man as John Caribou.

“I peen sick,” Hans alleged. “I don’d tink I coult fint dot dree again, so hellup me!”

“Hans will take us there all right, I’m sure, unless he should miss the way,” said Merriwell, turning to Parker, “but it’s too late to talk of leaving here to-night. We can stay in the camp till morning and make a good start then. I know that you are mistaken, that you are barking up the wrong tree, as the saying goes, but I’m not foolish enough to resist an officer. So, if nothing turns up to show you that you really are mistaken, we will go with you, but I beg that you won’t ask us to start till morning. Hans, show us now where the head was found.”

Merriwell was diplomatically fighting for time, which he hoped would bring the return of the guide. In spite of the fact that Parker said Caribou was also to be put under arrest, he had a hope that Caribou’s coming might bring a favorable change in the situation. He was forced to confess, though, that this hope rested on no very good foundation.

CHAPTER VII.
A BIT OF MYSTERY.

Under Merriwell’s urging, Hans Dunnerwust set out to conduct the party to the spot where he had found the head of the moose.

He went shrinkingly enough, and, as they drew near the place, he retreated in sudden alarm, squawking:

“Look oudt! I vos seen someding dot dree py!”

Glancing toward the tree indicated, the others saw the bushes moving, but could make out nothing else.

“Id vos a man,” Hans declared. “A man mit a gun. Shimminy Gristmas, if I shoult shood me, vot voult he do?”

“He’ll not shoot you,” assured Merriwell.

Bart Hodge started to run forward.

“I’ll bet it’s the fellow who killed the moose.”

Parker and all the others, prisoners and officers combined, followed Hodge at a lively gait; but when the tree was gained, no living thing was to be seen.

“He couldn’t have got away,” said the game warden, looking into the boughs as if he expected to see a man hanging from one, as Hans had seen the moose head. “That is, if it was a man. You are sure you saw something?”

This last was fired sharply at Hans.

“So hellup me cracious, a man mit a gun seen me dot dree py!” Hans solemnly asserted. “He vos vly away, I subbose, like a canary pird. Dot vos like a sbirit doo much do suid me, alretty yet. Oxcoose me! I vos vanted dot camp py!”

“Here’s something,” announced one of the deputies, prodding with his gun some object that hung from a limb.

It was found to be a piece of moose meat, hung up, as the head had been. A little search revealed other pieces of moose flesh, all of which the Dutch boy had overlooked. But nowhere could anyone find a trace of the man Hans claimed to have seen.

“Just some animal or other, nosing after the meat,” said Parker, with an air of conviction. “When he saw us, he scampered away, and that was what shook the bushes.”

The sun had now set, and the light was not good under, the trees, but the officers and the members of Merriwell’s party proceeded to look for some traces of the man, animal, or whatever it was that shook the bushes, and also to examine the ground where the moose had been skinned and cut up.

Merriwell had tried to keep his temper well in check, but he was growing more and more humiliated and angry. Some of the words dropped now and then by the deputies were peculiarly exasperating, but Merry knew how unwise and impolitic it would be to give these men any excuse for charging that he and his friends had “resisted officers in the performance of their duties.”

What hurt Merry more than anything else, though, was the conviction that was slowly being forced on him that John Caribou was not the honest man he had thought. The guide had been gone many hours, now, after leaving under circumstances that were strangely suspicious. Why did Caribou not return?

Merriwell recalled the exciting combat between the dogs and the deer on the lake, when he had saved the guide’s life. Had the guide forgotten that service so readily, after declaring that he could never forget it? It would seem so.

“But I shall not give up yet,” Merriwell concluded. “Things are looking black against John Caribou, but there may be a reasonable explanation for it all. It hurts me to lose confidence in a man in that way, and I shall not do it till I have to. He may have injured himself some way, or shot himself, for all we know.”

The game warden glanced at his watch.

“It’s getting dark in here pretty fast,” he observed. “I don’t see that we’re to gain much by all of us staying here longer. I shall stay, with Sam Best, to watch for that man. Dutchy may have been right, though I hardly think he was; but anyway, whoever hung up this moose meat, if it wasn’t our friends here, will come for it, and very likely to-night. I want to trap him.”

“Shall we leave the meat?” one of the deputies asked.

“Yes, just as it is. Get us something up to eat and send it over right away.”

Some of the deputies were still scurrying round through the undergrowth.

Merriwell chanced at that moment to glance toward Dunnerwust, and was bewildered by the look that he saw come into the Dutch boy’s face.

Hans had seated himself on a log not far from the tree, to rest and recuperate while the examination of the ground was being made. As for searching for the man, Hans would not have done that, lest he should find him.

A peculiar look of horror had crept into Dunnerwust’s face, which grew rapidly more pronounced.

What was its cause?

Hans had felt something reach out from the log on which he was sitting and press against one of his legs. He thought it the head of a snake and that if he moved it would strike him.

Whatever it was pushed gently against his leg for a moment, then pushed a little harder, after which the pressure was withdrawn. The movement was really such as might have been made by some animal in the log trying to shift to an easier position.

Hans would have leaped up and shrieked out, but that he was made too weak by that queer touch. Then the pressure returned.

It was unbearable. He could not stand it, even to save himself from snake bite. His heart gave a great bound, and, as it drove the chilled blood through his veins, his strength came back.

“Wow! Hellup! Fire! Murter!” he screeched, jumping up as if he had been touched by a hot coal. “I vos kilt alretty!”

As he did so, he felt a human hand come out of the log and clutch one of his legs. This was more than flesh and blood could endure. Instead of running he fell flat to the ground, where he rolled and kicked and shrieked in a way to raise the dead.

Excited cries came from the game warden and his deputies and from the members of Merriwell’s party. All rushed toward Hans.

Then the log seemed to become alive. It rose into the air, and a man appeared. The log had been only a shell concealing this man.

More surprising than all, the man was John Caribou, the guide!

Parker, rushing toward the guide, whom he did not recognize, however, in the semi-gloom, was struck by a piece of the shell which the guide hurled at him and staggered back, dropping the gun he seemed on the point of lifting.

John Caribou darted into the bushes and was swallowed from sight almost instantly.

A shot was fired by some one, and there was a hasty, pursuit, which amounted to nothing.

Merriwell was standing in a half dazed and wholly uncertain state of mind as the unsuccessful pursuers came back. What did it mean? What was Caribou doing there? Why had he run?

He could not answer his own questions.

Then he was made aware by the whirlwind of excited talk that no one else knew the man was Caribou. He had been nearer the log than any other person except Hans, and so had a good view of the man’s face and form, which the others had not.

“Caribou!” he inwardly gasped. “Shall I speak out or hold my tongue for further developments. I can tell it later if I think it wise; but if I tell it now, I can’t withdraw the statement should there become need. I’ll keep still.”

Hans Dunnerwust was rolling over and over on the ground like some speared animal.

“I vos nefer so tead as I peen dis dime,” he was gasping. “I vos pite mineselluf py a snake, and ead my leg mit a vilt cad, und shood mineselluf py a mans, und boison me drough und drough. Vill some vun kilt me do keeb me vrom dying dot snake-pite py?”

Hans was in a terrible state.

“Get up,” Merriwell commanded, “and stop that blubbering. The fellow is gone. You aren’t hurt in the least. Get up, I tell you. You are acting like a baby.”

“I vish I vos a papy,” Hans groaned. “A liddle pit uf a papy dot couldn’t valk indo der voods.”

“Must have been the poacher,” said Hodge, looking longingly toward the point where the man had disappeared. “I wish we could have put hands on him.”

“Perhaps our good friends will not judge us so harshly, now,” suggested Diamond, in the hearing of Parker and one of the deputies.

“Dutchy saw a man all right,” said a deputy.

“No use watching the tree now,” said Parker, regretfully. “He must have heard what we said, and he’ll never come back for that meat.”

“And it was John Caribou!” thought Frank Merriwell.

CHAPTER VIII.
JOHN CARIBOU PROVES HIMSELF.

What of John Caribou, fleeing through the woods in that mysterious manner?

When the guide left the camp, declaring that he must go for some tobacco, the statement was only an excuse, as Diamond supposed. Caribou had tobacco, plenty of it; but he was determined to get out of the camp, and that was the first thing that came into his mind to give as a reason for his contemplated action.

He was sure he knew whose gun had hurled that heavy bullet crashing through the head of the moose and he was resolved to see that person.

The slayer of the moose was also the slayer of the deer and the committer of the other violations of the game laws of Maine, of which Merriwell’s party had seen so many proofs since coming to Lily Bay.

When the hoot of the owl came, the first night the party was in camp on the island, Caribou had recognized it as an old familiar call. The man who had given that imitation of an owl’s hoot had slipped up to the camp later to have a talk with Caribou, and had been frightened away by Diamond. Later still, Diamond had seen him talking to Caribou, though they were so far away that Diamond could not tell much about the man’s appearance.

That man was a half-breed, known as Penobscot Tom, and he was John Caribou’s half-brother; who, though in color a shade lighter than Caribou, so resembled the well-known guide that he often had been mistaken for him. It was this man who had been seen to shoot at a deer, a misdemeanor which, it will be remembered, was charged against the guide by Parker, the game warden.

Penobscot Tom was a very different man from John Caribou. He was a restless, roving vagabond, a thief and a jail bird, a violater of every law he did not choose to keep. The white blood in his veins was all bad, or at least it had made him all bad.

He had been in the State penitentiary at Thomaston for four years, from which place he had only been released a short time. Caribou, however, did not know his half-brother was in the Moosehead region, or in fact out of prison, until he heard that familiar hooting of the owl. That was a call he and Penobscot Tom had used together in the woods in their boyhood days.

When afterward seen by Diamond talking to Penobscot Tom, Caribou had been vainly endeavoring to get him to say he would give up poaching or leave the country.

Straight for the brush hut in the heart of the woods, where he knew his half-brother was staying, John Caribou pushed when he left camp on that pretended errand for tobacco. He was resolved to again beg Penobscot Tom to leave the woods; and failing in that he hoped to frighten him away by telling him the game warden had found the head of the moose and was on his trail.

He had reached the hut, had made his plea, told his story, and again failed.

On his return trip to the camp, he had gone by way of the tree in which Tom had confessed he had hung the moose head and some meat.

There he had been seen by Hans Dunnerwust, and with his Indian instinct aroused by the exclamations and rush of the party, he had slipped for concealment into the hollow log, which was half buried in leaves and brush, but which he had noticed on coming to the tree.

The party of white men had remained at the tree longer than anticipated. One of his legs had been cramped, and in trying to ease it while Dunnerwust sat on the log he was discovered. Then he had dashed into the woods a great and manly resolve in his heart, and headed straightway again for the little brush hut.

He knew that Merriwell’s party was under arrest for killing the moose, a deed done by his half-brother. To his mind there was but one way to undo that wrong. He hoped that his identity was not know, but, regardless of this fact, he resolved to do what he now considered to be his duty, no matter what personal disaster it brought. On this he was determined, though it should send him to prison.

When a half mile from the tiny hut, he stopped and listened, then crept forward with stealthy, Indian tread. Advancing to the flimsy door he put an ear against it. He caught the odor of smoke. Penobscot Tom was smoking his evening pipe.

Without warning, John Caribou crushed in the door and threw himself on his half-brother. Both went to the floor together. Penobscot Tom, filled with fear and fury, fought like an aroused demon. He tried to get out his knife, but Caribou caught his knife hand and held it.

“Curse you!” Penobscot Tom snarled, trying to set his sharp teeth in Caribou’s throat, “I’ll kill you for this. You sneak, you wolf, you——”

The words ended in a choking gurgle.

Caribou’s hand closed on Penobscot Tom’s windpipe in a deadly grip, and forced him into semi-consciousness and speedy subjection. When he came round, he found his hands and feet tied, and Caribou in possession of his weapons.

Though John Caribou delivered Penobscot Tom into the hands of the game warden for punishment on the charge of killing the moose, a deed which Tom brazenly confessed when he saw he was in the toils, thus bringing the immediate release of Frank Merriwell and his friends, Caribou refused to accept any reward other than a mere recognition of the fact that he was a reliable guide and an honest man.

“A better guide, a straighter fellow, a whiter man, regardless of the color of his skin, doesn’t live,” declared Frank Merriwell, warmly taking Caribou’s hand at parting. “I shall never forget you, John Caribou, never.”

“We be friends, great strong friends, always,” said Caribou, with kindling eyes. “Some day we meet ag’in, mebbe, an’ have heap better time. Good-by!”

This was the only further conversation that Frank Merriwell had with the Indian for the present at any rate. He and his companions had decided that they had seen all that there was to see at Moosehead Lake and they determined to push on to Bangor. On their way to Bangor they stopped off at Brownsville. As they came up over the Maine Central Railroad they agreed to return as far as Milo Junction over the Canadian Pacific.

Barely had they left Greenville when Hans Dunnerwust was taken ill from over-eating, and, by the time Brownsville was reached, the Dutch lad was in such a serious condition that Frank decided to stop off and see that he was properly attended by a physician.

Thus it came about that two of our friends were found at the one hotel of the little town on Pleasant River a few afternoons later when a dudishly dressed city sportsman was exhibiting his rifle to the crowd gathered in the office of the hotel. Hans was in bed, attended for the time by Hodge; Diamond was out strolling around the village, while Frank and Bruce were admiring the rifle of the dude in the hotel office.

Sitting on a chair near at hand, languidly inhaling the smoke of a cigarette, was the companion of the fellow who owned the rifle. He also was a dudish-looking sportsman, and his friend called him “Cholly.” He had registered as H. Charles Gates. The other chap had registered as Archie Elmer.

“This wifle is not satisfactowy,” drawled Elmer.

“Did you say the rifle is not satisfactory?” asked Frank, in surprise.

“Ya-as,” drawled Archie.

“What is the matter with it?”

“Well, weally, to tell the twuth, it doesn’t shoot as well as I had evrwy weason to expect it would.”

“Oh, is that it? Who did the shooting with it?”

“I did, awve course, thir! Do you suppose I would allow evwybody to shoot my wifle?”

“Oh, certainly not!” smiled Frank; “but do you think you gave it a thorough test? What kind of an opportunity did you have to shoot it?”

“Well, it was not entirely satisfactowy,” said Archie, slowly.

“Perhaps if you gave it another trial, it might show up all right.”

“Waugh!” grunted a rough-looking man, whose face was clean-shaven, with the exception of a bunch of reddish-brown whiskers on his chin. “Let somebody try it who kin shoot an’ she may show up all right. I’d like ter have her. I’ll give forty dollars cold cash for her now, an’ take my chances.”

“Thir!” exclaimed Elmer, haughtily, “I paid two hundred and fifty dollars faw that wifle.”

“That may be; but, ef she won’t shoot, you can’t expect to git much for her. I dunno w’at ye’re goin’ inter ther woods this season with a rifle for, anyhow. You can’t shoot deer or moose, for this is close time.”

“My fawther is thending me into the woods faw my health,” explained Archie, frigidly; “and I expect to remain there till late in the awtumn. I shall have a chawnce to use a wifle before I weturn, thir.”

“Waal, ye want ter be dern careful not ter use it in close time ter shoot at deer with, though I dunno’s it’d make any difference, fer you wouldn’t hit northing with it.”

“Don’t talk with him, Awchie, deah boy,” put in Cholly. “Such coarse, ordinary persons are verwy inthulting.”

“Ya-as,” agreed the owner of the rifle; “they are awfully wude. Give me a cigarwette, deah boy.”

“Say,” grunted Browning, speaking in Merriwell’s ear, “if those chaps escape from the woods alive it will be a marvel. Somebody will surely shoot them as curiosities, and have them mounted.”

“The only thing that will save them is the fact that it is close time,” laughed Frank.

The man with a bunch of whiskers on his chin laughed hoarsely and derisively, turned a chew of tobacco in his mouth, and then spit a great squirt of tobacco juice upon one of Archie’s handsome russet hunting boots. Then, with his hands in his pockets, he slowly strolled out of the office, leaving Elmer gasping for breath.

“Oh, the wude w’etch!” cried the dude, angrily. “Just see, Cholly, what the nawsty cwecher did!”

“By Jawve!” fluttered Cholly; “that was a terriwble inthult, deah boy! I would have satisfaction, Awchie.”

“I will!” panted the owner of the rifle. “I’ll have it wight away.”

“Good gwacious!” exclaimed Cholly, hastily rising, while his face turned pale. “What desperwate thing awe you going to do, Awchie?”

“I—I’m going to—to tell that w’etch that he is no gentleman!” shouted Elmer, as he hastily followed the man from the office.

“Oh, Awchie is such a desperwate man!” came from the other, as he dropped back on the chair.

The men in the office laughed outright. Some of them started to follow the angry dude, but they met him at the door, returning with great haste.

“I did it!” he cried, but his voice trembled and he seemed to be shaking all over.

“Did you weally?” gasped Cholly. “And what did he do?”

“He spit on my other boot, by Jawve!” exploded Archie; and, sure enough, both boots were now well bespattered with tobacco juice.

The crowd roared with laughter, for this was the kind of humor that struck them as being very funny. Archie took out a delicate handkerchief and gently dried off the drops of cold perspiration that were standing on his brow.

“What dweadful cwechers these men are!” gurgled Cholly, gazing haughtily at the laughing crowd.

“They are, indeed,” agreed Merriwell, repressing his amusement with great difficulty; “and I fear you will find them even worse when you get into the woods.”

“Is it possible? Weally, Awchie, I don’t believe we had better go any further, don’t yer ’now. These cwechers awe too much faw a sensitive man to endooah.”

“I’m afwaid you awe wight,” agreed Archie, sitting down weakly. “I weally wish I were at home now, deah boy.”

“If you do not go into the woods, you will not need that rifle,” said Frank. “I will buy it of you.”

“I shall not sell it, thir, till I have given it anothaw twial,” said Elmer.

“Let’s go out and try it now,” urged Frank. “I’d like to shoot it some.”

“Weally, thir, I could not think of letting you handle it; but, as I want to get away fwom these wude cwechers, I will go out with you and show you how it shoots.”

“All right,” smiled Merry. “I’ll take my rifle along and do a little shooting, too. It is in my room, and I will bring it down immediately.”

“All wight; I’ll wait.”

Frank went up to his room and took his rifle from its leather case. It was a plain weapon, but was good enough for any ordinary purpose.

A few moments later four persons left the hotel and walked along the street. They were the two city sportsmen, Gates and Elmer, accompanied by Merriwell and Browning.

“Where shall we go?” asked Elmer, doubtfully.

“Let’s go up the river a piece,” suggested Frank. “We must get out of the village and be careful not to shoot in a direction that will put anyone in peril. These rifles carry a ball a wonderful distance, and they are deadly. Every year from one to three or four persons are shot by accident while hunting up here in the Maine woods. Some excitable individual catches a glimpse of something moving far away in the forest, and he bangs away without investigating. As a result, if he hits anything, he stands a good show of shooting a man.”

The city sportsmen looked at each other in alarm.

“Good gwacious!” gasped Gates. “We must go where no othaw persons will come, Awchie.”

“I’m afraid you’ll find that difficult,” said Frank; “for I have been told that as soon as the law is off in the fall, the woods are full of hunters from the Iron Works to the Canadian line on the north. They fairly swarm in here.”

“Cholly,” said Archie, “I don’t know as I want to go any further into these dweadful woods. It is too dangerous, don’t yer ’now.”

“That’s wight,” agreed Cholly; “I think we bettah wecooperate at Baw Hawbah, and keep out of the blawsted woods, deah boy.”

CHAPTER IX.
SOME SHOOTING.

Getting out of the village, they found a favorable place beside the river to try their rifles. Frank had brought along a board which he picked up as he was coming out of the village. It was a foot in width and three feet long. On the one end of this he fastened an envelope, and, with a lead pencil, he made a black circle as large as a silver half-dollar in the center of the envelope.

“There,” said Frank, as he leaned the board against a tree, “that makes a good target.”

“By Jawve!” exclaimed Archie. “It’s verwy small, don’t yer ’now!”

“Oh, that is large enough. We will stand down there by that knoll. That is a fair shot.”

“What?” gurgled Archie, astonished. “Why, that is a dweadful distance!”

He walked off about fifteen yards, and then turned about, observing:

“I weally think this is faw enough.”

“Why, it will be no job to hit that spot every time at this distance,” said Frank.

“Haw!” exclaimed Elmer, giving Frank a scornful look. “Anyone would think you are weally a cwack shot to heah you talk.”

“I do not claim to be a great shot,” said Frank; “but it would be an accident if I missed that black spot at this distance once out of fifty times.”

“I don’t believe you can hit it at all,” said Cholly.

Frank was standing with his rifle half lifted, the side of the stock pressing against his hip. He had silently cocked it, and now, without lifting it to his shoulder, he fired.

Both the city sportsmen uttered cries of alarm and jumped away.

“Good gwacious!” fluttered Gates. “Did it go awf by accident?”

“No,” laughed Frank. “I fired at that spot on the board.”

“But you didn’t take aim, thir!” palpitated Elmer.

“I didn’t take the rifle to my shoulder, as it was not necessary at this distance. That I hit the board is certain, for it has fallen down. I think you will find I struck the spot with my bullet. We will go and see.”

When they picked up the board, Frank showed them that the bullet had pierced the black mark very near the center. For some moments both city lads were overcome with astonishment, and then Archie said:

“It must have been an accident. Of course, you could nawt do it again, thir.”

“I think I could,” smiled Merry, coolly.

“Well, weally you must have a most wemarkable gun, don’t yer ’now. I think I will twy it.”

The board was put up again, and they returned to their former position. Archie attempted to shoot the same as Frank had done, but his rifle was pointing toward the top of the tree against which the board leaned when he fired. Of course, he did not touch the board.

“I nevah pwacticed that way,” he said. “I will twy the wegular way.”

Then he took careful aim and fired.

Examination showed he had not touched the board or the tree.

“It’s verwy vexing!” he exclaimed. “Awfter all I paid faw this wifle, it is no good, don’t yer see?”

Again and again he fired, and, with his seventh shot, he hit the board near the bottom, so it fell over again. Both he and Cholly gave a mild shout of delight and hurried forward to see where the bullet had struck.

“I should not like to be anywhere in a strip of woods while that chap was shooting at a deer,” grunted Browning, with a lazy grin.

“If I were anywhere in the woods I should want to be in the deer’s place,” laughed Frank. “It would be the safest position.”

“Why do you want that rifle?” asked Browning. “We are going out of the woods now.”

“That’s all right. I don’t want it for myself.”

“No? Who for, then?”

“For John Caribou. He sacrificed his own half-brother to save us from being punished as poachers, and I’d like to send him that handsome rifle as a token of my regard for him.”

“It’s a good idea,” declared Bruce, at once, “if you can get that rifle at a reasonable figure, and it really will shoot all right. No one but you, Merry, would have thought of such a thing. Diamond was convinced at last that the guide, even though he was an Indian, was not treacherous; but neither he nor I thought of rewarding him for his true nobility.”

“I thought of it,” said Frank; “and I offered John money.”

“He would not take it?”

“Not a cent more than he had agreed to take to act as our guide. If I send him that rifle, providing it is all right, it will be something he will appreciate.”

By this time the city sportsmen were returning, having leaned the board against the tree once more. They were laughing with triumph, and Archie exclaimed:

“The wifle is beginning to shoot better, don’t yer ’now. Perhaps it may come wound all wight.”

“Let me try it?” asked Frank.

“No, thir,” said the owner; “I couldn’t think of it. You have youah own. Let’s see if you can hit that board again, thir.”

“Well,” said Frank, not permitting himself to become angry, “if I am going to do any shooting, I must get away at a reasonable distance.”

He walked back till he could barely see the black mark in the center of the envelope. Then he whirled about and pumped six bullets out of his rifle with such speed that Archie and Cholly were simply dazed. With the final shot the board fell over.

“Good gwacious!” gurgled Cholly; “what do you want to waste shots like that faw? You couldn’t hit anything shooting that way, thir.”

“If you do not find I have struck that envelope with every bullet I fired, I shall be surprised,” said Merriwell, quietly.

They walked up to the tree and picked up the board. Examination revealed the astonishing fact that every bullet had struck within the black circle, cutting out a ragged hole there.

The city sportsmen were dazed. To them it was a marvel they could not understand.

“Have you a pack of cards in your pocket, Bruce?” asked Frank, knowing the big fellow had taken a pack into the woods.

Browning produced the cards, and Merriwell selected the five-spot of spades from it. That card he fastened to the tree with two pins, and then they retreated till the spots could barely be seen. Frank refilled the magazine of his rifle, and began shooting at the card. He fired somewhat slower and more carefully. With the fifth shot, the card fell to the ground.

Archie hurried forward and picked it up. Then he leaned limply against the tree, staring stupidly.

“What has he done, deah boy?” asked Cholly, coming up.

“Look!” gasped Elmer, holding out the card.

Frank had shot the five spots off the card with five bullets!

“Weally, I nevah saw anything like that!” declared Archie. “He must have a splendid shooting gun, don’t yer ’now.”

“It is most remarkable,” drawled Cholly, still staring at the card.

Frank laughed as he refilled the magazine of his rifle with cartridges.

There was a chattering scream out over the river, and a kingfisher came flitting along like a blue streak.

Merriwell wheeled and took a snap shot at the bird. It was more of a chance shot than anything else, as Frank afterward confessed to Browning, but the bird dropped into the water and floated down the stream with the current, its head shot off.

That capped the climax.

“That is a wonderful gun, thir!” cried Archie, still failing to give Frank any particular credit for his skill, but seeming to think the gun was entirely responsible for the rather remarkable display of shooting.

“Yes; it is a very good rifle,” nodded Frank, smilingly; “but it is not such a handsome weapon as that one you have.”

“What is a handsome wifle good faw if it won’t shoot!” burst forth Archie’s friend.

“That’s it,” sighed Archie, himself. “I wish I owned that wifle,” he declared, looking longingly at Frank’s weapon.

“How will you swap?” asked Merry, promptly.

“Oh, I’ll thwap!” cried Elmer, eagerly. “I know I could hit thomething with that wifle. But I paid two hundrwed dollahs faw this one.”

“And I paid twenty-eight dollars for this one,” laughed Frank. “Quite a difference.”

“How much money will you give togethaw with that wifle faw mine, thir?” asked Archie.

“You must remember that I have not tried your rifle.”

“Well, thir, you can take youah chawnces on it.”

“But I would like to try it.”

Archie stiffly shook his head, fearing inwardly that Merriwell would not exchange at all if he tried the weapon.

“No, thir,” he said; “I have made a wule nevah to let anybody shoot my wifle. You know what I paid faw it, and I know what you paid faw yours. What differwunce will you give between them and take your chawnces?”

Frank thought swiftly. It was plain enough that Elmer did not consider his rifle of any particular value as a shooting gun, and he feared to lose a trade if Frank tried it. It was a Winchester, and had been especially decorated at the factory, so, in all probability, it was a perfect weapon. Otherwise, it would not have left the factory.

Had it not been plainly apparent that the city sportsman wished to beat him in trading, Frank would not have thought of making an offer, knowing his conscience might smite him afterward. Now he said, aloud:

“I don’t think we had better trade, for you will want to change back afterward.”

“No, thir!” cried Archie, stoutly. “If I twade with you, that will thettle it.”

At this moment a step was heard near them, and they turned to see approaching the man who had treated Archie with so much scorn at the hotel.

“Look har, young feller,” he said, glaring at Elmer, who shrunk away, “ef you’re goin’ ter dispose of that rifle, I want ter buy it.”

“What a dweadful cwecher!” gasped Gates, also showing agitation. “Don’t speak to him, Awchie! Cut him dead, deah boy.”

Instantly the man’s hand went into his pocket and came out again, holding a large revolver.

“Don’t try none of yer cuttin’ with me!” he cried. “I kin shoot quicker than you kin cut.”

Whereupon Cholly hastened to explain:

“I didn’t mean to weally cut you with a knife, thir; I thimply meant faw him not to speak to you. We nevah carry knives about us, thir.”

“Waugh!” grunted the man, failing to appreciate the humor of the situation. “It’ll be best fer ye ter say w’at yer mean up har in this country.”

Frank Merriwell had been unable to repress a smile, but he held himself ready to act swiftly, if necessary.

Browning neither laughed nor stirred; he simply yawned and looked disgusted.

The moment the man restored the revolver to his pocket, Archie recovered somewhat from the fear that had silenced his tongue, and he said, with an attempt to be very crushing:

“Go wight away fwom here! I do not want anything to do with such a wude perthon.”

“You’ll have ter have something ter do with me,” came grimly from the lips of the man. “My name’s Enos Dugan, an’ people what know me say I’m a bad article to fool with. I want ter buy that gun, an’ I made ye ther fust offer fer it.”

“You are interrupting us, sir!” said Frank Merriwell, calmly. “He wishes to trade for this rifle I have here.”

“Don’t ye do it, greenie,” said Dugan. “That’s a cheap rifle, an’ this chap is tryin’ ter stick ye. I’ll give ye fifty dollars in clean money fer your gun.”

A wave of anger ran over Merriwell, while something like a smothered growl burst from Browning, who seemed ready to go for the insolent intruder.

“Mr. Dugan,” said Frank, his words coming sharp and clear, “you have no right to say I am trying to stick him, for I have not even made him an offer.”

“Haw!” blurted the man, giving Merriwell a contemptuous look. “I’ll say w’at I dern please! I’m goin’ ter have that rifle, or I’ll break that chap’s neck.”

“And you are trying to scare him into selling it to you! That is a reprehensible thing for a big ruffian like you!”

Dugan started.

“Hey?” he roared. “Did you call me a ruffian?”

“Yes; for you have shown yourself all of that.”

“Waal, denied if I don’t wring your neck!”

He made a grab for Frank, but Merry dodged quickly.

“Hands off!” he cried. “If you try to touch me, I will——”

“W’at?”

Dugan struck at Merriwell. They were on the bank of the river, which at this point was about four feet higher than the water. Merry parried the blow, and came in at Dugan like a shot, his hard fist flying out and catching the man between the eyes.

Crack! the blow sounded like a pistol shot.

Fairly lifted from his feet, the ruffian was hurled down the bank and into the water, where he floundered about, making a great splashing.

“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Browning, in deep satisfaction. “I was reaching for him when you got in that crack, old man. It was a dandy!”

Archie and Cholly were frightened and astounded, for it had not seemed possible that the beardless boy would dare strike that man.

Dugan floundered about and arose to his feet, standing in about two feet of water. There was a terrible glare in his eyes as he again reached for his revolver. The language that came from his lips cannot be printed, but he swore he would shoot Frank.

Instantly Merry lifted his rifle and covered the man in the water.

“Take your hand away from that pocket!” he cried. “If you don’t, I’ll drop you for good! I can shoot first.”

The ruffian hesitated, and then he saw by the expression on the boy’s face that he really meant to shoot, and, snarling like a wild beast, he obeyed the command.

“You shall pay for this!” he howled.

“Come ashore,” commanded Frank, still holding his rifle ready to shoot. “Step lively, there!”

Sullenly Dugan waded out and climbed the bank.

“You couldn’t hit anything, anyhow,” he muttered.

“Show him that card, Browning,” directed Frank.

Bruce did so, telling how far Merriwell had shot in cutting out the five spots upon the card.

“Good gwacious!” cried Cholly. “He shot a bird that was flying in the air, too. He did it dweadful quick.”

Dugan began to look on Merriwell with more respect, although his hatred for the beardless youth who had struck him had not abated in the least.

“I have taken to carrying a revolver myself while in this region,” said Frank, and then, with a snap of his hand that was bewildering in its quickness, he jerked out a revolver and covered Dugan. “You will observe that I am able to draw pretty quick. It’s a trick I learned out West among the cowboys. In the future I shall be looking out for you.”

“All right!” snarled the man. “It’s war between us, an’ I’ll make ye sorry in the end.”

“Get out! I am not going to make any more talk with you. Go!”

“Will you take fifty dollars for that rifle?” asked Dugan, glaring at Archie, who shrank back, trembling.

“No, thir,” was the faint reply.

“You’ll wish ye had!” grated the man, as he turned away.

They watched him till he disappeared from view in the village, and then Cholly turned to Frank, exclaiming:

“How did you dare stwike such a dwedful wuffian?”

“I was forced into it;” said Merry, honestly. “I did not want trouble with him, but there was no way out of it.”

“Thir,” cried Archie, grasping Frank’s hand, “you did me a gweat favor by hitting him. I feel that I have been pwoperly avenged faw the inthult he gave me. If you will permit me, thir, I will make you a pwesant of this wifle.”

Frank was surprised by this sudden generosity of the dude, but he immediately declined to accept the weapon.

“I could not think of it,” he said. “But I’ll tell you what I will do. That man offered fifty dollars for the rifle. I will give you fifty dollars and this rifle of mine in exchange for yours. At the same time, I feel it my duty to tell you that, without doubt, I am getting the best of the trade.”

“It’s done, thir!” exclaimed Archie, in great satisfaction.

They exchanged at once, and Frank paid Elmer the money. He had obtained the weapon he coveted.

CHAPTER X.
THE STOLEN RIFLE.

“Now, by gwacious!” cried Archie; “I’m going to twy this wifle. Let me have a cawd out of that pack.”

Bruce did so, and Cholly hastened to pin the card onto the tree. It happened to be the ace of spades.

When the card was fastened to the tree, Archie retired a respectable distance and prepared to shoot.

“Right here,” said Frank, “is where he finds out it was not his rifle that caused his bad shooting.”

“And he is liable to want to change back after he finds it out,” grunted Browning.

“Well, I shall change with him if he does,” said Frank.

“What? You wouldn’t give up that rifle now you have it?”

“If he wants to do so, I shall change back without a word.”

“Well, you are queer!”

Archie lifted the rifle to his shoulder and aimed long and carefully. The weapon was seen to wobble in a way that was actually painful to witness.

“He couldn’t hit a house!” growled Bruce, in disgust.

Then the dude fired, and, accompanied by Cholly, he hastened forward to the tree.

A great shout went up from both city sportsmen.

“I knew it, deah boy!” cried Archie, in great delight. “Didn’t I tell you so?”

“Is it possible he hit the tree?” muttered Browning, in surprise, as he and Frank went forward to see what had happened.

“Look there, gentlemen!” cried Archie, proudly pointing at the card. “That shows what I can do with a gun that will shoot, don’t yer ’now!”

“By Jawve! it’s wonderful!” exclaimed Cholly, in amazement.

“Not at all, deah boy—not at all!” declared Archie, stiffening up. “I knew what I could do with a good wifle.”

“Of course,” agreed Cholly, doubtingly; “but it is—aw—ah—wemarkable what a differwunce there ith in the two wifles.”

“Well, may I be hanged!” grunted Bruce Browning, as he stared at the card, as if doubting the evidence of his eyes.

“He cut out the spot all right,” laughed Frank.

“I suppose such miracles do happen occasionally,” muttered the big Yale man; “but it seems hard to believe.”

“I’ll have to give my new rifle a trial now,” said Merry, as he took the cards from Bruce and ran them over till he came to the ace of clubs. “We’ll see if I can shoot with it.”

“But I hope, thir,” said Archie, quickly, “that you will not expect me to change back if you find you cawn’t hit anything with it?”

“Oh, no,” smiled Frank; “but I rather fancy it will shoot better than you thought, Mr. Elmer.”

“I gave it a verwy good twial,” said Archie, stiffly.

“Verwy,” nodded Cholly.

The card was fastened to the tree, and then they retreated till the spot upon it scarcely showed.

There was a hurriedly whispered conversation between the city sportsmen as Frank took his position and prepared to shoot.

Merry secured a quick but careful aim and fired. Then, with Bruce, he walked forward to see the result of the shot.

The result proved entirely satisfactory, for Frank had cut out the spot on the card.

“That settles it,” said Frank. “I knew well enough that this rifle must shoot perfectly unless it had been damaged since leaving the factory, Mr. Elmer.”

There was no answer, and both Yale men turned to look for the city sportsmen, expecting to find them near at hand. What was their astonishment to see Archie and Cholly hastening away toward the village as fast as their legs would carry them.

“Why, they didn’t wait to see the result of the shot!” exclaimed Frank, not a little surprised.

“Huh!” grunted Browning. “It’s plain they thought you wouldn’t hit the card; that’s why they didn’t stay.”

Frank began to laugh again.

“And I’ll wager something they were afraid I would want to trade back, for all of what I said.”

“That’s it,” grinned Bruce. “That’s why they are running away.”

“Well, let them go. Perhaps Elmer would not have been so perfectly satisfied with his trade had he remained to see me try this rifle. Of course, I did not want to beat the fellow, for he had a generous fit after my little encounter with Dugan, and he actually offered me the weapon as a gift.”